Well, I took the plunge and flushed/filled the transmission yesterday. I used the method outlined by Hoot:
- Drain pan
- Remove & clean pan
- Remove & replace the spin-on filter
- Replace pan (pan bolts = 20 ft/lbs, drain plug = 25 ft/lbs)
- Fill -w- ~10 quarts new fluid
- Disconnect upper cooler line (from cooler)
- Start engine & pump out ~1 gallon fluid (3/4" clear vinyl tubing)
- Stop engine & add ~1 gallon fluid
- Start engine and pump out another gallon
- Stop engine and re-attach the cooler line
- Fill the transmission to proper level and you're done.
(important details omitted - see Hoot's info for the full procedure)

A couple notes that may be helpful to add:
There's quite a bit of fluid in the pan after draining it. Some have said this is about 2 quarts, though that is on the low side in my estimation. In the time between putting the drain plug back in and removing the pan, a lot of fluid drains into the pan. This is easy to spill.

The pan gasket is reusable. You'd have to try to damage it for it to become unserviceable.

The operation is not hard, but very messy. I used a lot of kitty litter cleaning up the spillage.

Using the proper-sized drain tubing to attach to the "From Cooler" line would help. I thought I was safe with 1/2" tubing, but 3/4" tubing would have worked a lot better.

Keep a lot of paper towels handy. I noticed that my hands were picking up dirt & grit that I did not want inside the transmission.

Four hands are very helpful when pouring fluid into the fill tube. The funnel with flexible tube helped, but holding it steady takes at least one hand and holding the fluid container takes another two hands.


Thanks to Hoot all of you who have posted your experiences. Reading them sure helped me do this for the first time!

HBruns

Thanks for the write up. I just ordered filters for mine and am getting ready to chenge the fluid.

I too am getting ready to change the fluid. Did you buy the 5 gal. bucket of transynd?? If so, how did you fill from the 5 gal. pale? I was thinking of getting a 1 gal. jug, and filling that from the 5 gal. pale so that you're not trying to pour a 5 gal. pale into a little funnel. I can see that being a mess!!http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Disapprove.gif

Fin-Addict,
I bought 5 gallons of fluid in two 2.5 gal jugs. I did not use Transynd, rather the Amsoil version called Torque-Drive. Its only a few bucks more for 5 gal of Troque-Drive than for their regular full-synthetic ATF. 5 gallons of Torque drive set me back $107 plus tax & shipping. Unless you can find a deal on Transynd, this is a lot less money.

Another note:
You really do need two people for parts of this procedure. One to start & stop the engine, the other to watch how much fluid is pumped out. It will pump a gallon in under 30 seconds, so you don't have time to do it with just one person. My 10 year old son was happy to hold the funnel for me and also start/stop the engine. Yesterday was Father's day, so we also got to spend some "guy time" together.

Thanks,
HBruns