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Tranny oil experiment complete ("It's alive! Alive!!")
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Posted by Eiron [Email] (more from Eiron) on Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:20:01 Share Post by Email
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I finally dumped the tranny oil mix (70% Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40 & 30% M1 10W-30) from my '90. Holy cow, it looked like crap!! It was about 1 yr & 9k miles old & looked almost as dark as used motor oil. I plan on draining it again in a year to see if it looks any better next time. I'll extend the drains out by 10k mi (to a max of 30k mi) after it starts to look decent. I suspect the diesel oil is probably flushing a lot of stored junk outta there. I think that's a good thing, but it was a LOT dirtier than I was expecting. I'm becoming more & more convinced that gear oils & additive concentrates (like BG's MGC) only promote this kind of crud accumulation.

I refilled with Shell's Rotella T Syn 5W-40 (not a true PAO/Group IV synthetic, but a Group III highly-processed conventional oil). It shifted great on its first day out. The change-over last year from gear oil to motor oil gave me some hard shifts (mostly N-to-1st) for several weeks & eventually smoothed out. This new oil gave me a few balky N-to-1st shifts when I started out the first morning, but after about 5 mi it was as smooth & positive as ever. (Maybe it needed to "wash off" the old oil for a few miles before it settled in?) Now, a few weeks after the change, shifting is wonderful.

I did the same tranny oil change procedure for the '85 8v. And it's had the same great results as the '90, with fantastic shifting all the way down +8°F cold-startups (this car's not garaged). Last winter it was miserable trying to shift at all below 20°F. The original 10W-30 was like cement at these low temps, & the post-Auto-Rx mix of 60% Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40 & 40% Saab 5W-30 semi syn was only slightly better. The D1300S 15W-40 has the same 10W cold-flow specs as their D1300S 10W-30, but even with the 40% 5W-30 semi syn it was really stiff below 10°F. The old 10W-30 I pulled out of the '85 looked pretty dirty when I dumped it a year ago, but the recently dumped D1300S mix looked fairly clean. And, to my surprise, much better than the mix I pulled out of my '90. Again, further indication that motor oils are the way to go in these trannies.

If you're already using motor oil in your tranny, I highly recommend Rotella Syn 5W-40. If you're a gear oil user, I'm reasonably confident that changing over to this motor oil won't kill your tranny. (YMMV) In either situation (motor oil or gear oil), I also highly recommend Auto-Rx as preventative maintenance, followed by at least one short (1 yr) interval of diesel oil to remove accumulated junk.

posted by 146.82.1...

How it all began, one year ago ......

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