What kind of tranny oilshould i use in my 4-speed. I have dextron III in it right now and it works good. But would 90 wt give me better protection?? Has anyone thought about using motor oil in a 4-speed? or is that a dumb idea?
Thanks, Tom B

Does anyone have an A-body reverse rod they wouldnt mind selling me???

tommyb1515@ao.com

My brother-in-law had a mid 80's Dodge van with a 3 spd filled with ATF. I could hear him coming from about a block away. We changed the lube to 90W and it sure quieted the tranny down.

fglmopar@aol.com

i've seen chrysler specify ATF as their lube of choice as it will lube the trans just fine but do a better job of preventing gear clash. you could use motor oil, just pick your weight "by climate" meaning thicker oil for cold weather/thin oil for hot, etc. if you feel the need for "gear" oil, stay away from gl-5 (rear axle lube) and find some gl-4 (made for manual tranmissions) and again pick the weight by your climate. also stay away from synthetic gear oil. i read a test in mopar action years ago and they found that it worked terribly in an a-833 (i believe "clash city" was the term Dr. Ehrenberg used!) also any persistent noise can only really be repaired by replacing a bad bearing or in extreme cases a gearset may be in order.

-james

ludite13@cs.com

Great info. seems like manual trans. oil selection is a series of trade-offs between how quite and how much bearing / gear load protection you get (thick / slippery oils) vs. how well the brass syncrows rings grip the cluster gear cones. (gear clash vs. a fast shift)
ATF and light motor oils work well for easy shifting but do not protect the bearings and gears as well, especially when running hot.
DD
:
: -james

Thanks everyone, I will just keep the ATF in my tranny. How difficult is it to change the reverse shaft seal? I have a pretty big leak from the reverse lever and i need to fix it. if i take off the side cover and the reverse lever, can i just slide the shaft in and replace the seal???


tommyb1515@aol.com

i re-read my earlier post and said "...thicker oil for cold,/thin oil for hot..." well in the words of the great willie wonka, "scratch that, reverse it!"

d-nut, as for your reverse-shaft seal i assume you are talking about the shaft where the shift lever bolts on. if so, i believe you need to disassemble the whole trans to get to it as (if memory serves me) the arm that engages the reverse gear sits between the gear and the case. it isn't really a seal, but an o-ring that fits in a groove in the shaft itself. the forward gear shafts use a similar o-ring type seal but you can replace them by removing the side cover and diassembling the cover itself.

-james

ludite13@cs.com

That's how I remember it, too.

fglmopar@aol.com

wow, I got into a major debate about this on hte subaru web board, the same day I claimed Marvel mo was atf. I was running atf in my suby transaxels and got totaly heckled about it, even though it shifeted better and made less nois, and I already knew that lots of manual trans were using atf.

I put gear oil in my OD, it resists 1st until it is warm. It is a little irritating.

Which reminds me..

when rebuilding an od and you use super snot as the grease, don't be spooked when you installl the shifter and can't get any gears.... until is has been rotating.

and that little reverse lockout thingy can be held in place if you pop the revers light switch when putting the plate back on....

if someone is putting togerther a how 2 od rebuild, those 2 things should be mentioned, as well as the oil selection.

Ricahrd-c@e-d-a.com

wait, isn't it a nylon thing with an oring?

Well, you cam patch it with an oring from orchard, or you can pick the old oring out with a dnetal tool and put a new one in.

taking apart tranny -bad
yearly patch-----GOOD!

i had never considered that! as a mazda tech i was afforded the opportunity to provide the first major services on many a "new" 30kmi miata and recall many complaints of hard shifting after changing the trans oil in those 5-speeds. well, lets just say that we tried a bunch of stuff (atf, atf/gear oil mixes, etc) the best stuff to date was (and still is) red line synthetic. unfortunately i have never tried it in a mopar trans nor have i heard of it's use ( the mopar action stuff was a mopar synthetic) but i think it claims universal application. i think grassroots motorsports did a article on synthetics where they actually did a before and after dyno test and the swaps (motor oil, trans oil and diff oil) actually netted a few HP. food for thought.

-james

ludite13@cs.com

I think im just going to change the ATF for some 90wt gear oil or some thick motor oil to slow the leak. What do you guys think of Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil in a tranny?

tommyb1515@aol.com

I would fix the leak before using anything costing $5.00 a quart.
DD

Good idea, i agree with you, ididnt think about that point of veiw. I think i will jus tput some 90 wt GL4 gear oil in, and be done with it. The leak isnt really that bad, i think it will slow it down alot

I changed the oil today for some straight 60 weight valvoline engine oil. Thats some think motor oil! It stopped the leak. It leaked really bad at first with the ATF, but it slowed alot with some use. Now it stopped. I guess the seals just needed some use after a long sit.


tommyb1515@aol.com

In the old days they'd use bananas and/or sawdust.

fglmopar@aol.com