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ATF fluid in 4 speed ???


Guest Anonymous

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Guest Anonymous

My '84 Volvo box calls for Dexron II, and it's pretty similar overall to the BMW box. I don't know why, but since the early '80s many gearboxes stopped calling for old-fashioned heavy gear oil, and switched to auto trans fluid.

It probably works better at low temperatures than 80w gear oil, which might help your synchros when the car is cold.

Mike

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Guest Anonymous

I am sure about one thing: if the inards of the trany uses clutches lining as syncho stopers, like my borg warner t-5, it will defenitively needs atf, and it will not work at all without it, or very badly, The heavy 80w oil will destroy the linings, i did experience it in my t-5. That is the sole purpose of using this oil then, same material as the automatic trany clutches. As our syncrho are made of brass or so, i dont know what it will do to them with atf, maybe premature wear??

Pat

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Guest Anonymous

I own a Ford Aerostar Cargo van I use for my work. It has a 2.3 SVO style injected/header exhaust motor with Mazda 5 spd., which is why I like it. It's my second 5 spd. Aerostar, and both of them have specified ATF for the trans. However, when I bought this current '87, it had already been changed to 80-90 weight lube, and seems to be fine at 250,000 miles. May disprove the wisdom of sticking with ATF.

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Guest Anonymous

When I rebuilt my 4-speed, I bought new synchros. There are two basic types of synchros on the 4-speed: the old 'Porsche style', and the newer 'Borg-Warner style'. The change occurred around '71, I think. Both types of synchros were made of brass.

So I ordered a set of the Borg-Warner style synchros, and I was told that the 'original' BW-style parts were no longer available, and had been replaced by a slightly different design. The original ones had grooves on the friction cone surfaces, the new ones have a frictional material---very possibly made of the same stuff as a clutch lining--embedded in the friction cones. I was not told by the supplier to run ATF, but it's possible that it should be done. I ran Redline MTL in it for about 2 years/ 25k miles with no problem, but it's rather similar to ATF in consistency, and might be formulated for newer model gearboxes that run lined friction cones.

Mike

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Guest Anonymous

90 weight gear oil is not as heavy an oil as you'd expect. The API weights for gear oil do not use the same scale as SAE motor oil viscosities. ATF and API 90 weight gear oil are about the same viscosity as SAE 30 motor oil. So it's no surprise that they can interchange with no immediate - or even longterm - ill effects. For that matter, ATF and power steering fluid are reputed to be the same thing in some circles. My M5 calls for ATF in the power steering circuit, so they have to be very similar.

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