I know a lot of you probably had high hopes when you saw the title of this post, but this is about an automatic, not a Liberty Ave. tranny...

So the other day I went to get one of my cars out of winter storage and to my delight, there was a few quarts of tranny fluid spewed on the ground (more than just a casual drip here and there). Lost enough fluid that it is definitely not mobile as-is.

My question is... I know running an auto - in this case a 700r low on fluid is really hard on it, but since this lost so much, can I even start the car to get it up to operating temperature to get an accurate reading? I'd like to add enough fluid to take it to my buddy's transmission shop, but I don't want to burn up the converter either. On a side note, the car ran/shifted great when I parked it last October so I think internally everything is OK.