GEAR OIL

[BajaPorsche]

Hi all,
I've posted on the TIV forum before, here's my question.
Gear Oil;
I'm running in So Cal, temp range from the 30's on winter mornings, to over 110 in the summer.
I just dumped the gear oil, and put in some 80-85 weight (that's all they had). Does anyone think this is way too low, and that I should stay up and over 120 weight?
thanks.

[Dave_Darling]

Stock spec is for 90-weight hypoid gear oil. I personally prefer Swepco, but any decent-quality non-synthetic will do just fine. Especially if you change it out every other year.

Some people disagree and feel that the synthetics are the only way to go. I personally had a bad experience with Red Line MTL in my transmission, so I will stick to Swepco from now on.

--DD

[Guest]

Thanks Dave.
If 90 is recommended maybe I better dump this 80-90 and put in some heavier gear oil.
So you like Swepco, maybe I'll give try.

Oh wait, if you get a chance maybe you or someone else can answer this..... Summers are hot, I have an external oil cooler so I run generally at 180 all year around, maybe boosting up to 195-200 putting around in 110 degree weather....

Do you think going up to 120 wieght swepco oil, will give me any problems in the cool winter months......
any seals blowing out, synchros not getting enough oil?
thanks again for the info.

[Dave_Darling]

I believe Swepco gear oil only comes in one viscosity. (Could be wrong, though!) I don't think going up in weight is a great idea, but I think the 80/90 that you've got in there is probably just fine.

--DD

[Pablo]

Dave,

Was your bad experience abnormal R&P wear?

[Glenn]

I've been using the Swepco 201 80W-90 in sll my trannys.

I did alot of research and that's what i'm using in my Berg 5 also.

ZIMS has the best price and don't be alarmed when you get it in a 1 gallon jug with a computer printer lable on it. I verified with Swepco that ZIMS buys it in 55 gallon drums and then puts it into 1 gallon jugs. That's how they can sell it for less.

Also you might hear the GL5 is not safe and you should use a GL4. I spoke to the tech staff at Swepco and they said that their 201 is perfectly safe to use and will NOT harm yellow metals.

[Dave_Darling]

Was your bad experience abnormal R&P wear?

Nope, it was abnormal wear on every other single component inside the box, though! IIRC, three of the gear clusters and two of the synchros were reuseable, pretty much everything else had to be changed out. I even had bizarro wear patterns on the spider gears in the differential!!

The oil that came out of the box looked very very sparkly, like it was about half metal. 'Cause it was...

--DD

[raygreenwood]

Dave....could you elaborate on bizzaro wear pattern for teh spiders please? I ask...because this is symptom of the 004 type 4 gear box whe4n it craps out.
I have suspicions that it is actually caused in my transmissions by loss/wear of the shim/ring outboard of teh differential side bearing...allowing the side output shafts to retract into teh differential, wear the spacer tube and cause the spyders to seat too deeply in the gears of the side output shafts.

But....in the third box this happened to over a period of years....it accelerated greatly from the use of a specific oil additive. It may be on the same track as your experience. Ray

[Dave_Darling]

Frankly, Ray, it's been long enough and it was a painful ($$$$!) enough experience that I don't really recall the details. I don't believe I kept the old transmission parts, either, so I can't exactly go check them out.

--DD

[raygreenwood]

Yep...I hear ya! When the spyders crap out...or things crap out from gear oil problems....theres not much left to do but spend money and cry. Ray