Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 08:36:55 -0700
Reply-To: Todd Last <Rubatoguy@MINDSPRING.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Todd Last <Rubatoguy@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: Re: Tranny oil - success
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Here is what I was told.
If you have any leaks, and switch from dino oil to an all synthetic oil, your
leaks will probably get worse. This is because the dino oil causes the seals to
swell slightly - synthetic does not. So when you switch to synthetic, any
swollen seals will shrink back to original size. Hence the often heard comment
that "I switched to synthetics and my motor started leaking." This may or may
not happen to you - but high mileage engines seem to be most prone to it. Oh,
also synthetic oils may also pull some existing sludge back into suspension, so
if you have a leak that is plugged by a little sludge, switching to synthetic
may cause a leak in this instance too.
Todd
'88 Westy
John Rodgers wrote:
> Somewhere along the way in life living with a Vanagon, I have read that
> the synthetics may very well cause seal seapage, if you are switching
> from Dino oil to synthetics. If you sart out with all new seals and all
> new synthetics then it is not a problem. Never quite made sense to me,
> however. But minor seepage doesn't hurt anything. Just be sure to do a
> tranny level check at routine oil changes and you will always catch it
> when the tranny oil begins to get low.
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL driver
>
> Blake Thornton wrote:
> >
> > Well, I got around to putting in new transmission oil yesterday. I
> > drained the old (brownish in color) and cleaned off my drain plug (it had
> > accumulated quite a collection of metal fragments).
> >
> > I then opened the bottles of redline MT90 and saw pink. I was immediately
> > worried but then realized that redline is synthetic and not dino oil. So
> > I dumped it into my tranny (ok, I actually pumped it in with a fluid pump
> > and it worked great). I used about 4 quarts in the tranny and about 1/5
> > of a quart on the ground (oops!).
> >
> > I then drove around after buttoning everything back up. My van shifted so
> > wonderfully! I couldn't believe I was driving the same van. I wish I had
> > done this earlier.
> >
> > Just thought I'd post my success.
> >
> > blake
> > 84 westy
> > SLC UT
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