Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:20:50 -0500
Reply-To: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: Re: transmission, final drive oil level
In-Reply-To: <1250b1e91003300714k3e67c875g1a5d82faf94f8fbb@mail.gmail.com>
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Actually, it looked pretty clean.Pretty much the same color and clarity
as when it was put in fresh.Most manual transmissions never get a change
of lube between rebuilds. That never made sense at all to me but that is
pretty much the practice. But from what I know about lubricants, it's
clear that they do need to be changed periodically no matter where they
are installed. Typically lubricants on gears are long molecular chains
that because of their length stay closely wrapped to the metal on the
gears. This keeps a padding between the teeth and bearings, thus
reducing wear. But over time, these molecular chains get broken into
smaller pieces and the lubricant loses it's ability to stay put on the
metals and between the gear teeth and bearings thus resulting in
increasing wear of parts. Therefore the lubricant needs to be changed
out periodically to replace the broken molecular chains. It just makes
sense. I picked two years for the change out just based on my own
experience with running machinery. No book told me to do it that way. It
just seemed appropriate in my experience. Seems to work. It's a lot like
my engine oil. I use Mobil One Synthetic - 15-50wt. and change it at
3000 miles regardless of the fact that they say you can go twice the
distance without change. In that case - it's not about the breaking of
the molecular chains - but about removing the contaminants that form
from the engine - contaminants that contribute to and cause wear and
tear, in addition to the broken molecular chains.
As for your particular case - I don't know what that color is all about.
It may be that you are still getting some rust working it's way into the
fluid, and the next time you change it out it will be more clear.
Depending on how thoroughly they cleaned out the gear box when the
rebuild was done, the cleansing action of the new lubricant may be
picking up stuff that was deposited in hard to get at places in the the
gear box. That was the case on mine when I first switched over to
Redline. I couldn't get out all the old lube, so for a time I was
running a mix - mostly MT 90 with the residual 90 wt hypoid oil. I
changed it out much in just a few months and it was very dark. After
filling with all new MT 90, it's always been fairly clear ever since. I
think MT 90 has excellent cleansing properties.
Regards,
John
John Rodgers
Clayartist and Moldmaker
88'GL VW Bus Driver
Chelsea, AL
Http://www.moldhaus.com
Shawn Wright wrote:
> John,
>
> So how does the MT90 look after 2 years? I was surprised how dark rust
> coloured mine was when I last checked, and this was just installed after a
> tranny rebuild (for the 4/5 slider hub failure - it's a 5 spd). The trans
> had MT90 before the rebuild, but only for a short time; before that it sat
> in a junkyard for a few years.
>
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 6:11 AM, John Rodgers <inua@charter.net> wrote:
>
>
>> When I first got the "The Red Brick" 88 GL - manual tranny - I had
>> problems shifting into 1st gear. Changed to Redline MT 90. Brought it up
>> to where I could touch with the pad of my finger tip and called it good.
>> Never had any trouble since - and that was in 1999. I change the MT 90
>> out every two years. Seems to work fine for me
>>
>> John Rodgers
>> Clayartist and Moldmaker
>> 88'GL VW Bus Driver
>> Chelsea, AL
>> Http://www.moldhaus.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Don Hanson wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Yes, and exactly how do you 'check' the "15mm below the lower lip" while
>>> you are filling up that tranny? I'd say trust the factory before changing
>>> to what Bentley says, especially given the awkwardness of trying to fill
>>> your gearbox and check for "Level plug minus 15mm" while you have gear oil
>>> dripping from a hose and you're crawling around under the van..maybe with
>>> an
>>> ink line on your little finger?
>>>
>>> Don Hanson
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:53 AM, Michael Snow <slowmachine82@gmail.com
>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 5:20 AM, Arkady Mirvis <arkadymirvis@gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> There are different opinions on oil level in the transmissions and final
>>>>
>>>>> drives. Bentley stated that for 1987 Westy level of transmission oil is
>>>>>
>>>>> to
>>>>>
>>>> bew 15 mm below the lower lip of filling hole. But 2 mechanics, I spoke
>>>>
>>>>> to,
>>>>>
>>>> stated that level is to be at oil hole lower lip.Who is right?
>>>>
>>>>> Ark.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Bentley 35.60 says that the transmission oil capacity was reduced to
>>>>>
>>>> reduce shifting effort. There is no comment on how that affects
>>>> transmission life. Having no difficulty with shifting, I continue to
>>>> fill to the bottom of the oil filler hole on all of my transmissions.
>>>> I don't notice any improvement in shifting at the lower oil level,
>>>> especially with synthetic gear oil.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Michael Snow
>>>> 1987 Syncro TiiCo
>>>> 1982 Westfalia 1.9TD
>>>> http://slowmachine82.blogspot.com/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
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