Posted by Rob Steller on January 28, 2000 at 04:22:57:
In Reply to: Re: Synthetic gear oil posted by Bill Nasby on January 27, 2000 at 20:10:50:
I've been running synthetic oil (redline brand) in all my W-300 gearboxes for about 10 years & 70K miles now. I have nothing but raves about it. In my power-lok rear axel I found that petroleum base oil GL-5 would discolor (burn?) after about 15K miles. The synthetic never changes as far as I can tell. It does sneak out though, soI use teflon tape on the plugs, and new seals/speedy sleeves. It does even come through casting porosities, but all my casings are painted on the inside, which seems to help. I've heard of people using fiberglas resin (waterglas?) to seal castings. I even use SAE140 synthetic in the trachta (sp?) joints, and it stays in very well. I need to add about 1/4" about every 2 years. The redline MTL is great in manual transmissions, makes synchros happy in my totoya, volvo, and dodges. I even use it in my hubs, by drilling a radial, 1/4" pipe taped hole in each hub between the wheel and brake drum mounting flanges. This lets me fill, check level or drain depending on rotation of the hub. Makes relubing wheel bearings really easy, plus I can check for water in the bearings after fording work. Oil is better for bearings anyway.