If anyone viewing this has really sharp 356 eyes, they will notice in the first shot of last post that some pandejo installed that transmission mount "buffer thing" backwards. Yes folks, he put the left one in correctly and the right one inverted. Unless this is some trick thing to do on these cars, (in which case I'll have egg on face), it's pretty amazing. It's almost like he could not remember which way they went and split the difference:
Getting back to the fluid project, this is basically one of the first things that I do to any older vehicle I acquire or work on. The reservoir is usually very dirty unless fluid was changed religiously. (Very rare). This one was dirty but not anywhere near the worst I've seen. I recently did this job on a 1960s Mercedes for a friend, wish I had a picture of that reservoir. Holy schit. Sometimes, a brand new ATE res is available for a reasonable cost and I just replace it if it's horrible. It seems like every car lately has a $200 res, so I've been cleaning them a lot. If they come off easily, I clean them with simple green and scalding hot H2O+ a little scrub brush, then rinse w/ distilled water and
dry completely using a heat gun. That part is very important, you must be absolutely certain not to leave a hidden droplet of H2O inside.
On this car, I could not determine how the res came off the MC, so I cleaned it w/ Brakecleen and a tooth brush, upside down over a pan so as not to get any dirt into the MC. It came out well.
Before:
During:
After:
Don't forget the cap and screen, make sure to (carefully) remove the rubber gasket and get everything spic and span:
