Kilby High Volume Automatic Transmission Pan

Over the past five years, the popularity of automatic transmissions among hard core four wheelers has grown by leaps and bounds. The primary benefit of the automatic tranny is the extremely fine control you have over your wheel speed (particularly when using the brake and throttle at the same time). Other benefits include making it virtually impossible to stall your engine, and full-power gear shifts.

Kilby Enterprises www.kilbyenterprises.com Email: brad@kilbyenterprises.com Tel: (818) 848-2900 Fax: (818) 848-2974 1847 N. Keystone St. Burbank, CA 91504

With these advantages come disadvantages. Automatics are costly to repair and are easily susceptible to heat-related damage. The key is to avoiding damage is to keep the automatic transmission fluid (ATF) as cool as you can. Fortunately, it is fairly easy to implement some preventative modifications to do this. Once they're done, your automatic tranny will be able to survive in the harshest 4x4 environments.

The two mostly highly recommended modifications are a shift kit and a transmission fluid cooler. Project YJ has both of these modifications and you can read about them here: www.bc4x4.com/pv/yj/tranny. After those two changes, the next recommended modification is a high volume transmission pan.

Because we always had excellent service when dealing with Kilby Enterprises, that's who we contacted for a transmission pan. Kilby's transmission pan for TF999 automatic transmissions had these benefits over the stock pan:

1. The additional ATF volume provided by the deeper pan gives the ATF more time to cool down before being pumped back into the torque converter.
2. The deeper pan and its extended fluid pickup line allows the vehicle to operate at steeper angles without starving the transmission of ATF.
3. The extra ATF capacity means you have an added measure of safety if you suffer a fluid leak.
4. The pan comes with a drain plug! This makes regular ATF filter changes a painless affair. That means you're more likely to change the filter regularly and that's a good thing.

As usual, the high capacity transmission pan arrived shortly after we ordered it from Kilby Enterprises. Installation instructions weren't included but none were needed.

We did the installation during Project YJ's scheduled transmission filter replacement interval:

Here's the stock pan. Notice the complete lack of a drain plug.	No drain plug means you get to play "guess where the ATF is going to drip from next" whenever you have to service your transmission (ie: during regular fluid changes and filter replacements).	Here's where the filter originally mounts.
Here's a side-by-side comparison of the old and new pans. As you can see, the Kilby pan is about twice as deep as the original. By the way, don't forget to transfer the magnet from the old to the new pan!	This odd-looking assembly is the oil filter extension. This is required so that the tranny can draw fluid from the bottom of the new, deeper pan.	Here's what it should look like when it's bolted into the transmission.
Here's the new pan, installed and ready to fill.	It doesn't hang down much more than the original so ground clearance isn't an issue at all.

I would recommend buying this pan just to get the drain plug! The fact that it also improves the longevity of your transmission is a huge bonus. It's an easy modification and will make future fluid changes painless. Buy it.

- Wil Girindra