I just swapped the gearbox and r/diff oil in my Alfa Spider (with Redline GL5 70W90 and ns (gb)). The drain plug of the diff was covered with about a quarter inch of pasty gray goo (really nasty stuff). The gearbox drain had a film of it, too, though not as bad as the diff. Can I presume that the shop hasn't been changing the gearbox/diff oils? (The Alfa only gets about 1500 mi/year.) Do I need to change oil again in 500-1000 miles to "flush" the box? The drivetrain is much quieter with the Redline in it. BTW: I have little sense of smell, but even I found the gear oil stench overpowering. Should I have been in MOP3 gear to deal with this crud?
That pasty goo is the magnetized particles of your gears and bearings as they wear. That's by design, and not anything you need to worry about. I think it's hard to say for sure if it's been changed... You could make a mental note of how much it has now, and check again the next time you change the fluid yourself. In the meantime, just drive the car!
Thanks. That's pretty putrid looking goo, for normal gear parts. But the whining noises that were building up over the last few years are (mostly) gone -- which was the whole reason I went with the new synth oil. (It still gets a minor whine just at 45 in 4th -- but it's been doing that for 15 years.) So, yep, I'll be driving it, now. (If we get a day where it doesn't rain.) But I'm absolutely going MOP3 for the next change. That stuff is nasty. (I also need to work up a better pressure transfer pump. Too much air leaks out of the converted juice bottle. )
DGS, The RedLine oil is doing yeomans service in our daily drivers, and seems to be good stuff. I read over on, ahem, Miata.net that redline can actually take a couple of hundred miles to fully break in. I didn't believe it when I read it, but I have to say the Miata 5 speed did get smoother and smoother over 200 miles of so. So there you go. As to pumping the stuff, you can get a squirter for $3 at pep boys etc that fits in the redline bottle like it was made for it. Cheers, Jon
Thanks. I don't know of any pep boys around locally (just autozone and napa). Any manufacturer / part number for that gizmo? (NAPA might have one.)
