Were is the transmission dip stick?

[Nazrat]

Don't get your hopes up: the dipstick doesn't mount to the pan. The dipstick mounts through a hole in the top of the cast section of transmission that the pan mounts to.

http://tad.grosvenor.org/gallery/94TrooperMods/CIMG1427

Looking at that photo you'll see the output for the transmission cooler at the front of the middle section of the transmission. If you look at the 1994 transmission behind it, you'll see an oil black hole there. That's where the dipstick connects to the transmission body. The newer (1999) transmission doesn't even have a non-drilled depression there. So the best that you could do is to remove the transmission, drill the case and hope that it seals. There also might be a difference in the valve body inside the pan there as well, I don't remember that part.

Be sure to keep the later non-dipstick pan too. The earlier pans didn't have a drain, so changing the fluid was very messy. I ended up sucking the fluid out with a topsider instead of trying to lower a pan full of fluid.

-Tad

[AnalogVX]

Actually, I was told by a couple mechanics and oil change places that the 4L30E is supposed a sealed transmission. Read non-serviceable. Which is why most won't touch it. My argument always is, if was non-serviceable, why does the manual list service intervals?
Go figure.