You cannot tell how dirty the filter is unless it is disassembled. If you soak it you may loosen some of the dirt but some will stay to loosen up later after you reinstall the filter. To clean the filter involves grinding the edge off all the way around and separating the pieces noting the order of assembly so as to be able to reassemble correctly. You also have to drill out the 3 holes. After cleaning thoroughly reassemble. YOU MUST REASSEMBLE IN THE PROPER ORDER THE MESH AND THE SUPPORT BAFFLE! To hold it together get a piece of 1/4 copper tubing 19 1/2" long. Slit lengthwise with a cut-off tool or hacksaw. Using little "c" clamps to hold the filter together hammer the tubing all around soldering the ends together. Now in the future you only have to remove the tubing to clean the filter. The oil in the final drive really doesn't ned to be changed too often, just keep it at the proper level. Any good quality 80-90# gear oil will do fine, synthetics are not needed. David Teitelbaum vin 10757 --- In dmcnews@xxxx, Delorean17@xxxx wrote: > Hello, > Today I removed the transmission pan and also removed the old > transmission gov/computer. As long as I have the pan off I would like to > clean the filter