Allison fluid change frequency?

[biker Wayne]

I'm wondering how often you guys change the trans fluid, especially the first time. I've got over 15K miles on my 02 D/A, about a third of which are pulling 11K pounds. Would it be wise to go ahead and do the first change now, or save the money and wait until 20 or 25K miles? The trans temp has never been over 195*, so it shouldn't be cooked. What's the consensus?
Thanks.

[JEBar]

if you haven't changed the spin-on filter, would probably be a good ideal to do so ... manual says 25,000 for hard towing...I have some towing but certainly not "Hard" and I plan to change mine at 25000 and replace the Dextron with synthetic :cool: .... Jim

[mdrag]

One of our resident Allison experts - Big Al - recommended that the spin on filter be changed at 5K miles - only the filter at this time since it can become clogged with break-in debris.

Change the tranny fluid at the intervals recommended in the manuals.

I see if I can find the link to Big Al's post on this topic.

[mdrag]

Here are a few links to previous posts - SteveO and BigAl made the recommendation for 5K spin on filter changes:

http://forum.62-65-dieselpage.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=002105

http://forum.62-65-dieselpage.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=002410&p=

Try a search on this topic and you will come up with many more hits...

mdrag