My son's 99 TL with about 150K miles was experiencing random, elevated engine coolant temps for the year and a half we have had it. After replacing every other component, I determined it had either a head gasket leak or a crack in the head. Rather than change the head gasket, I picked up a used motor with 100K.

Motor came out fine, once I noticed the passenger side side axle had a carrier bearing, and the oil filter had to come off. For anyone wondering, yes, the motor can be removed from the top...



I noticed when I was pulling it, a few bolts were missing here and there, and one of the engine to transmission bolts came out with a wad of aluminum stuck to it. That led me to suspect it wasn't the first time the motor had been out. When I checked the green vin tag on the motor, it did not match the car's vin. Seems odd that a car with pretty low miles was on it's second motor already, but oh well.

New/used motor in, started up first try. Runs like a champ. Same P0135 code for oxygen sensor that was on before. I'll replace that soon.

On to the tranny: now that I have invested 2 days of my life and many, many beers into this car, I would like for it to last a good while longer. I drained the transmission fluid, didn't look bad, still reddish, not too much greyish matter attached to magnetic plug, and replaced it with the Honda DW1 thinking that was a good thing. Now I see that the 99 4 speed should really have Z1 fluid. My go to parts supplier, Amazon, lists only one Z1 fluid and it's AC Delco...


Is that what I want? It says in the description it's for GM cars with a couple specific transmission codes, but says "Honda" in the title.

I also wondered about installing an inline and
I do worry about these components reducing the flow of fluid though. And exactly where I could mount the cooler.

 

for the glass Acura/Honda auto transmissions, I wouldn't steer away from Honda's OEM ATF-Z1 which you can get from the dealer at a marked up price

 

After some googling, the two GM transmissions that the Z1 fluid is for are only found in Saturn Vues. Guess who built them. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't GM.

No wonder there are so many Saturns Vues with bad transmissions.

 

Dont use Z1 as it has been replaced by the modern and Semi-Synthetic DW-1. If you find Z1´s those are old stocks that they want to sell.. Your car now uses DW-1 as OEM not Z1.

 

^ Yup DW-1 is direct replacement for Z1 from Honda. Don't even bother with Z1.

 

Remember the rear main seal plus the o-ring behind the plate.