How do you drain trans fluid?

[DanJetta]

I'm at 79K miles and wanted to check my transmission fluid for contamination. How do you drain the transmission fluid without having it go all over that beam that's perfectly covering the plug?



So I unscrewed the plug just enough for the fluid to seep (drip) out onto a piece of cut cup. Took me 10 minutes to collect this much (see pic below).

[DanJetta]

Sorry, here's a version of the picture that's not designed to be seen from space. I flipped my truck around onto its roof to take this picture. Kidding, it's upside down.

[disallow]

Let 'er fly. I don't recall it making a huge mess in the many times I've done it.

[dawgn86]

I jacked up the front of mine a little bit...but it wont make a mess.