Accidentally drained tranny fluid and tried to drive! what do I do?

Hello, this is my first post. Last week I bought a 2000 tundra with a brand new frame for $500, a pretty good deal! All I had to do was replace the starter (not a fun job). Well I did that and everything went smoothly, but when I put it in drive and revved it nothing happened. I was pissed and thought it had a bad tranny, but when I got out I realized I had knocked the transmission cooler line off the radiator while working on it! I hadn't noticed because I just went straight to start the truck when I was done with the starter. I had lost all fluid and the dipstick read nothing at all. My question is: how much damage did I do by starting it up with no fluid, putting it in drive, and revving it up for about 15-30 seconds? I hope to god I didn't screw the tranny, I'll be fixing the line and refilling the fluid tomorrow, let's hope the dang truck moves!

 

Toyota's are tough. You may be ok. We have a lot more knowledgeable members here that should have some advice. I would probably do a series of drains and refills with the best fluid they make, over the course of a week or two. You won't know the potential damage until you refill it and see what happens.

 

I'd say you'll be fine. Cold start, for a couple minutes probably didn't build enough heat to be a problem.

Refill it and see what happens.

 

This is the best way to find out. Sounds like you should be ok based on 30-45 seconds. Look at the bright side: You’ll have fresh fluid now!

 

Should be fine, keep us posted. Good luck with the new Tundra & welcome!

 

Doubtful that you did any damage. Just fill 'er up, start it up and move the shift lever back and forth from reverse to drive a few times, ensuring that it goes into gear each time to distribute the fluid through the valve body and fill the torque converter. Then check the fluid level before driving around a little bit, letting it shift throuigh all the gears. Then recheck the fluid level one more time.

 

Welcome from Northeast Connecticut. You'll be fine. It takes more than that to kill a transmission.

 

thanks guys, I hope you are right. This truck has high-ish miles, 212k, I've heard that these transmissions last a while tho

 

If everything goes well maybe think about changing the fluid one more time after a few thousand miles. Just for good measure.

 

Welcome from NC!

 

Welcome to the party!!

 

I don’t known a lot about transmissions, but doesn’t the fluid pressure make it shift? So if there was no fluid, it wouldn’t even try to do anything meaning he will be good?

 

thanks to all, the transmission seems to work fine, the truck seems like to have been a very good deal. Only issue is it's surging at idle now, maybe it was because I disconnected the battery so the ecu reset? I'll figure it out, thanks for the responses.

 

Give the MAF and throttle body a good cleaning.