2020 GT500 owners manual / supplement

[The Chairman]

For the diff fluid change: Step one is simply removing the purple snap ring holding the lower cooling hose fitting to the housing (magnified part of the pix):

Do you also see the small drip at the bottom of the housing and the shiny fluid on the housing? Turns out that I had a small leak where the upper cooling hose mounts into the diff cover:

Hard to see in this pix as I couldn’t get a good shot of it. But a 1” open end wrench turned that fitting a whole turn just to get it snug. Will have to keep an eye on it in case I need to remove and reseal.
The fluid appeared to be a bit cloudy as it drained, and smelled, well, like diff fluid....

Finger test showed why:

I removed the plug first (which turns out to be magnetic), and cleaned it. There was about a 1/16” of metal gunk stuck to it.
After draining, I refilled it and it took 2 quarts as advertised. I still need to get it hot enough for the cooling pump to kick on and make sure the radiator is full.

Overall, a very simple job.

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[The Chairman]

For the transmission “side filter” change:
Note: There is a larger filter in the bottom of the trans that does not have to be changed (page 77).

First: remove the heat shield protecting the side of the transmission from the exhaust right next to it. Two small bolts and a nut:

There are two cooling lines that need to be loosened (blue circles) and three bolts (green circles) holding the cover over the filter:

The instructions also say to remove two bolts on the other side of the transmission that hold the cooling lines tight. Even though I removed the bolts holding both lines, I never removed the rear tube from the transmission. Only removed the front one so I could remove the filter cover.

The cover comes out with the filter still stuck to it, just like the oil filter canister. I was surprised to find that the fluid is coming from the cooler to the inside of the filter. Note the wording on the housing and the fluid flowed to the inside:

The filter looked normal from the outside, and the inside didn’t look bad either:

I was concerned about how much fluid might come out since the filter is kind of low in the transmission. But very little drained, it as very clear, and the magnets did not pick up any metallic particles at all:

The plug is brass and was a bit snug initially. But once loose, turned easy with my fingers. Very tight fit to get a wrench on it to get it out of the case. 1/4” Allen wrench worked fine:

It initially took about 1/2 quart to fill. The instructions say to then run the car for 5 minutes to get the fluids to fill the coolers and filter, etc. Added another 1/2 qt after that. So all together, took a full quart to change the side filter.

To the side of the fill plug was one embossed area, telling us to use Pentosin FFL-4 fluid. My guess is that the Ford fluid that is made in Belgium is actually Pentosin:

There was also a laser etched area to the left of the fill plug. I think this is a trans serial number or build date with a QR code. These numbers to not match to my VIN, build date, or any other number:

I didn’t see any other etching on the left side of the transmission. Nothing that would indicate numbers matching to the engine or my car.

I changed the transmission side filter because I wanted to after the first track event. Otherwise, you should change it every 20,000 miles (page 76).
They also recommend a diff fluid change after 500 miles of track use (page 44 &77).
In my case, I had about 200 miles and 2 hours of track time. So I changed the diff, trans side filter and engine oil/filter.

I should also comment that I was very impressed with the DCT manufacturing. The overall quality/machining appears flawless, fluid was very clean and the filter did not appear to have any metal particles in it. So their machining/cleaning was much better than Ford's building of the engine itself.

 

[The Chairman]

Update to the diff leak of last year: as I was changing the trans side filter again recently,
I looked at the diff cover for any signs of leakage:

Bone dry - zero leaks!
Tightening the fitting was enough in my case.

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