Gear oil for 2D, MD5

This thread is like asking what everyones favorite beer is. 

I don't care what anyone's preferred oil is. Run whatever you want. Don't come complaining to me if you chose a different oil than we say to use and it doesn't work out. 

For what it's worth, there is lots of good oil out there, and only a few bad ones. I don't care for the Redline oil, and I'll probably catch attitude from Dave McDowell for saying that I now don't care for the Kendall oil based on recent issues I have had to deal with. 

Flame on.

 
Sean@Weddle said:
This thread is like asking what everyones favorite beer is. 

I don't care what anyone's preferred oil is. Run whatever you want. Don't come complaining to me if you chose a different oil than we say to use and it doesn't work out. 

For what it's worth, there is lots of good oil out there, and only a few bad ones. I don't care for the Redline oil, and I'll probably catch attitude from Dave McDowell for saying that I now don't care for the Kendall oil based on recent issues I have had to deal with. 

Flame on.
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Synchro issues or something else?  Time for a drain/fill and still have 3 quarts leftover of Kendall.

 
L.R.S. said:
As long as no one is using Redline Synthetic Shock Proof all of our transaxles will be just fine.  Yeah, I said it.
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Jeff ,

I  just did a car with that  338 LS  mid engine - The guy swears by Redline - I had his 2D trans gone through 2  seasons ago and he runs desert too, just had my trans guy check it out, said it was perfect, swapped the mainshaft bearing because it had "some wear" -  You saw it turn to Jelly? I drained his 2 year old redline fluid, it looked like Pepto Bismal - that kinda made me sick, but not Jelly 

I get the feeling that QC at lots of the oil companies is not great, or maybe heat affects this stuff.  I drained a car back in January had swepco in it (the green stuff) and I have used that Many times - this Fluid was in from not a full season and it came out smelling like Burnt wood ....

 
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Fullthrottleguy said:
Jeff ,

I  just did a car with that  338 LS  mid engine - The guy swears by Redline - I had his 2D trans gone through 2  seasons ago and he runs desert too, just had my trans guy check it out, said it was perfect, swapped the mainshaft bearing because it had "some wear" -  You saw it turn to Jelly? I drained his 2 year old redline fluid, it looked like Pepto Bismal - that kinda made me sick, but not Jelly 

I get the feeling that QC at lots of the oil companies is not great, or maybe heat affects this stuff.  I drained a car back in January had swepco in it (the green stuff) and I have used that Many times - this Fluid was in from not a full season and it came out smelling like Burnt wood ....
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Ran Ultra Heavy Shockproof in a fragile FWD transaxle in a race car with a very aggressive clutch type limited slip for a decade of competitive racing. At the end of a race, case temps would be 300*F, but never wear issues (these were very long-wearing, just not strong). Changed it once a season when we drained another racer’s and it came out like water after 2. Never turned to jelly, but suuuuuuuuuuuuucked to pour. Holy balls, about an hour to pour 4 quarts heated in hot water...

 
Fullthrottleguy said:
Jeff ,

I  just did a car with that  338 LS  mid engine - The guy swears by Redline - I had his 2D trans gone through 2  seasons ago and he runs desert too, just had my trans guy check it out, said it was perfect, swapped the mainshaft bearing because it had "some wear" -  You saw it turn to Jelly? I drained his 2 year old redline fluid, it looked like Pepto Bismal - that kinda made me sick, but not Jelly 

I get the feeling that QC at lots of the oil companies is not great, or maybe heat affects this stuff.  I drained a car back in January had swepco in it (the green stuff) and I have used that Many times - this Fluid was in from not a full season and it came out smelling like Burnt wood ....
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Your description of Pepto Bismol may be more accurate then my jelly comparison.  This was many years ago, and I checked my files and can't find a picture so it was before I was posting here and doing tech threads.  I knew it looked strange as soon as I started draining the trans and forget exactly who I called but I was told yeah, Redline Shock Proof does that sometimes. Saw it again in another transaxle and let the cars owner know I wanted to replace it with LAT.  

I became familiar with LAT not only from Rancho but also when I was racing Class 1 Unlimited cars.  We had Fortin's, one 4 speed H pattern and one 5 speed sequential, both with torque convertors and we ran LAT gear oil.  

I'm picking up my Albins AGB H pattern form Rancho tomorrow.  2nd gear started making noise Thanksgiving week and after talking to two very trusted sources I was told no parts were available due to the Rona so I could keep driving it and not use 2nd. And that's what I did for the rest of the season.  1st to 3rd made it boring to drive but I was still in the dunes.  This is the second rebuild since I bought the car in 2015.  Last rebuild was Oct 2017 so lots of dune time on my 3500lb car.  

 
The Redline heavy shockproof can cause issues with synchronizers as the solid additives tend to build up between the synchronizer and gear, preventing the synchro from having enough friction on the gear to speed up or slow down the gear during a shift. This is when it feels like the shifter physically does not want to shift into a specific gear. This normally happens when trying to shift quickly. A slow slower shift might not have any issue.

We have also recorded higher temps with the heavy shockproof, where the oil acts as a bit of a heat sink and holds heat rather than dissipates it like a light oil would.

Other oils that we do not tend to like are normally due to seeing moderate wear on gear faces with high powered applications, where the oil may not have the required extreme pressure additives to prevent contact between surfaces. 

 
I was under the impression that synthetic oil was not ideal for synchros. Is this false?

 
Synthetic is ok for synchros, but it can depend on how any particular oil might be manufactured for a specific purpose. 

Many gear oils today are manufactured to work in truck/car diffs that have limited slip clutch packs in them. These often require an oil that is a little bit "slippery" so the clutch's don't grab and chatter when making tight turns in parking lots. 

Synchros don't like a slippery oil as they require a certain amount of friction with the gear to change the gear speed during the shift so the engagement teeth can slip in. This is why we also don't like oil that has "moly" for synchronized gearboxes.

Of all the oil that we have tried out in our HV-25 test trans, we have found that the Maxima oil allows for the best shifting quality, even though it is synthetic. 

 
You know now that I think about it when I blew my 2d it was blowing the red line out the breather box like pepto used LAT did not think about the possibility of a lub issue. 

 
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Sean@Weddle said:
The Redline heavy shockproof can cause issues with synchronizers as the solid additives tend to build up between the synchronizer and gear, preventing the synchro from having enough friction on the gear to speed up or slow down the gear during a shift. This is when it feels like the shifter physically does not want to shift into a specific gear. This normally happens when trying to shift quickly. A slow slower shift might not have any issue.

We have also recorded higher temps with the heavy shockproof, where the oil acts as a bit of a heat sink and holds heat rather than dissipates it like a light oil would.

Other oils that we do not tend to like are normally due to seeing moderate wear on gear faces with high powered applications, where the oil may not have the required extreme pressure additives to prevent contact between surfaces. 
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I'm sure the ultra-heavy weight contributed to heat loading from shear as well.  

 
after turning my S4 into a box of broken parts again with only 535 hp and 33" tires, I have moved from Kendall to Maxima 75w-140. I have worked with maxima on aircraft oil from an engineering standpoint, and they really do know what they are doing. They own additive packages (unlike folks like Torco), they have significant change control and test capabilities as well as great spectro chemical stability. That said, I have not inquired with them about the 190 wt yet. I'd like to really understand the pro/cons, if its a group 5 synth base (vs group 4), and use case differences that might sway one way or the other.

 
Maxim is what I have been using as per Sean at Weddle. However on my personal 2D I have noticed my syncros grinded starting with the 140 maxim and the 190 makes me feel like my syncros are done until it warms up real good. It shifts smooth with 90 but the gears wear faster. Have to compromise somewhere.

 
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I have a Weddle HV-24 and mostly stock LS3 with 3 years of use and I use LAT. I do notice that when cold it is very difficult to shift, so much so that during a 1-2 shift I pause for a second after clutching to shift it or it will grind as second engages. As soon as it warms up it shifts beautifully. I typically drive the car for a bit while everyone is getting ready to go so it is semi warmed up when we all leave for a ride. I have drained the fluid and it is never discolored or smelly, other than what gear lube smells like anyways, and there is hardly ever any debris on the magnet other than some fuzz. The very first time it was drained there were some metal flakes on the magnet but nothing that I would have considered abnormal. 

Thanks for the heads up about the Maxima Sean, I will order some and try it out this upcoming season. 

 
In synchronized transmissions (MD, HV, and VW), a heavier weight oil will prevent the synchros from grabbing the gear and "synchronizing" the shifting components until the oil has warmed up a thinned out a bit, especially on cold mornings. Shift slow and easy until you get some heat into the transmission after driving around a bit and it should shift much better with heat.

 
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