Date:         Thu, 14 May 1998 08:29:46 -0600
Reply-To:     Fred Porter <fporterNOSPAM@EYRING.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Fred Porter <fporterNOSPAM@EYRING.COM>
Organization: EYRING, Corp.
Subject:      Re: Redline trans oil (part 2) and a trans question
Comments: To: Tom Young <young@SHERLOCK.SIMS.BERKELEY.EDU>
Comments: cc: Vanagon@VANAGON.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Tom,
I switched to Redline MTL in both my transaxle and front differential
and really like its performance, esp cold weather.  Its been in the
boxes for about 10,000 mi now which isn't much of a testimony, but
others on the list have been using the same oil much longer on old
gearboxes with no problems.....

I was experiencing a noisy trans and tried the Redline oil as a
> possible "fix."  It didn't work, and I said as much in my post.

***Maybe the problem wasn't 'fixable' with oil--sounds more like it was
related to a developing gear problem you stated below.
>
> 1st and 3rd blew out; I limped home on 2nd and 4th.
>
> Yesterday I drained the oil from the trans in preparation for swapping the
> trans with a used unit I got from a junker (man, I hope that use trans
> works!) and only got about 1,5 to 2 quarts!  It looks like the Redline
> was leaking past the main seal in the trans, and that was the real source
> of my oil leak.

***There is about 1.5 qt of the ~3.2 qt capacity of the trans that is
trapped, so only getting out 1.5 to 2 qts sounds correct.
>
> I guess in reading about the use of synthetic oils on this and other lists
> I'd heard about how using synthetic oils after long use of dino oil can
> result in oil leaks.  My experience confirms that position; the trans had
> not leaked _a_drop_ in +200K miles of dino oil use, but lost about half
> its oil in the 3-4 months since the switch to Redline.

***before i switched to Redline, i had similar questions and asked their
tech rep as well as other van list members who use redline.  My
conclusion was that early synth oils may have had this problem, but
modern synthetics do not.  Again, your 'oil loss' is probably acounted
for by the trapped oil.
>
> So, in my case, switching to the synthetic may have actually exacerbated
> the problem.

***...doubt it.

my $.005 worth
fred
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