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GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic"
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EVfun
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:33 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

The Beetle transaxle is NOT hypoid, it is a spiral bevel final drive. Hypoid means the axis of the ring gear and of the pinion gear do not intersect. Moving the pinion off centerline of the ring allows a larger pinion gear for a given drive ratio, but beging to introduce sliding motion similar to a screw drive.

I have no doubt the Porsche need GL-5. It seems clear that the late VW Bus needs GL-5 as they use a hypoid final drive by all reports I've found. I would even recommend talking to your transaxle rebuilder about your Bug transaxle if you plan to push 2x stock power or more. Wbat is fine for something near stock may no longer be -- gear loads will be much higher.

I've got one rebuilt 40 horse gearbox that has been running Redline MTL (that is thinner than recommended) for the last 15 years in my buggy. I've got a '62 gearbox in my '57 that I doubt has ever been apart. 2nd was prone to a little "grunk" when shifting into 2nd when cold. The previous owner cared for it well and had replaced the gear oil. I don't know what he used, GL-4 or GL-5, but I don't think it's synthetic. It was very clean so I just pumped a quart out and pumped in a quart of MTL. It shifts nice now.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:06 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Yes, I drive a 1990 Syncro Westy w/ 230 hp. The R&P in my van has a 10mm hypoid offset, just like a GT3 Porsche. Wildthings also drives a Van. Did you think we were just talking about Bugs or stock-only applications?

I'm well aware of high horsepower against Bug transaxles. When we held the quarter mile record (full-bodied, on gas), we ran a 440 hp monster engine and we had no back up transaxle. Many other competitors went through 4 transaxles in a single race weekend, yet our Type I transaxle never broke down.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 8:49 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

gears wrote:
No reason to act like an A**. Rancho (and plenty of other shops) have seen VW gears raced with inferior oil, which have failed prematurely. They end up in the trash can, not on the bench for photos.

Posted among my gallery pics years ago:
"Damage to Factory GT3 gear, the result of using GL4 gear lube in a race car"
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


This thread has been going on for 8 years at this point, lots of time for someone to have gotten a picture. Sorry but I don't give a squat about Porsches or racing, they don't count for a thing in my book, zero, nada, nothing.

As for the helical gear set you show the teeth appear to be mainly damaged from the pitch line of the teeth outward. I have trouble seeing that as being caused by running GL-4 oil. A helical gear set should be able to run just fine with GL-3 oil or just plain mineral oil. I would have to say there was something else at play here, if not an incorrectly cut gear then with a tranny that was very low on oil or the oil foamed badly, maybe both. Those teeth also seem to have more damage on the right hand side than the left, that too would indicate that the damage had nothing to do with the oil being run.

If a trucker pulling out of Fairbanks pulling 250,000# with a motor blown to 650HP can run 30wt in his gear box without the helical gears failing then you shouldn't need a GL-5 oil to keep a helical gear going in a puny race car.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:15 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

You don't see the Porsche relevance because it doesn't suit your argument. The cause of the gear damage depicted was determined by a professional Porsche race transaxle shop. They educated the car owner, changed the gears and oil type, and so far as I know, problem solved.

Your argument began years ago, telling us that the yellow metals in our transaxles were going to melt with GL-5. Yet in 8 years, no actual photos to prove your statement. Instead, you've turned it around, asking for photos to prove GL-4 is inadequate.

My own feeling is that many of our vehicles run on the borderline of needing GL-5. Start adding heavy gear to an already heavy Syncro camper, then add an additional 150 hp, and you'd be a fool not to run GL-5. My R&P probably wouldn't survive very long on FLAPS GL-4. Well known VW shops have learned this independently over the years. Lucky for us, oil companies sell a product that's EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED. GL-5 has added Extreme Pressure additives to help protect our expensive R&Ps, whether for in a race car or an overloaded Vanagon.

I think the new Swepco 202 will prove popular. A trusted name brand, GL-5 protection, smoother shifting synthetic .. it should suit anyone not buying into the yellow metals nonsense.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 1:38 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

The swepco 202 does say on the bottle
"does not require limited slip additive"
and does not contain the word "syncro"

These should be red flags that it may hamper the action of old fashioned syncros

If it DOES work great, and does shift great, that's cool, but you would not know that reading the label.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:27 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

gears wrote:
Yes, I drive a 1990 Syncro Westy w/ 230 hp. The R&P in my van has a 10mm hypoid offset, just like a GT3 Porsche. Wildthings also drives a Van. Did you think we were just talking about Bugs or stock-only applications?

I just wanted to point that you cannot really compare the ring and pinion in the Beetle transaxles to the ones in the Porsche and late Bus transaxles. The design is quite different, the Beetle not being hypoid, so the oil needs may be quite different.

Did the Beetle use yellow metal syncros, on either the all synco box or the older 3 syncro box?
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:46 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

gears wrote:
You don't see the Porsche relevance because it doesn't suit your argument. The cause of the gear damage depicted was determined by a professional Porsche race transaxle shop. They educated the car owner, changed the gears and oil type, and so far as I know, problem solved.

Your argument began years ago, telling us that the yellow metals in our transaxles were going to melt with GL-5. Yet in 8 years, no actual photos to prove your statement. Instead, you've turned it around, asking for photos to prove GL-4 is inadequate.

My own feeling is that many of our vehicles run on the borderline of needing GL-5. Start adding heavy gear to an already heavy Syncro camper, then add an additional 150 hp, and you'd be a fool not to run GL-5. My R&P probably wouldn't survive very long on FLAPS GL-4. Well known VW shops have learned this independently over the years. Lucky for us, oil companies sell a product that's EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED. GL-5 has added Extreme Pressure additives to help protect our expensive R&Ps, whether for in a race car or an overloaded Vanagon.

I think the new Swepco 202 will prove popular. A trusted name brand, GL-5 protection, smoother shifting synthetic .. it should suit anyone not buying into the yellow metals nonsense.


So you can't determine the cause if this failure on your own, I guess I am not surprised as you didn't notice or didn't care to bring out the truth about the gearset that Bruce posted a pic of a while back. Either you had no idea it was improperly set up or it didn't suit your narrow agenda to let the truth be known about the gear set and were willing to let Bruce get by with his deception. You are reducing your credibility to zero.

I have never claimed that all GL-5 oils will damage the synchronizers but some will, like the product now being recommended by GTA. Other GL-5 products I dealt with over the years have caused irreverible hard shifting and synchro damage as well . There are certainly GL-4 oils out there that shouldn't be used in these gear boxes, such as Redline MTL and MT-90, but that doesn't condemn all GL-4 oils, especially the ones that provide equal protection to GL-5 oils, which many do.

I did own a Porsche 912 for a very short while which had been owned for a couple of decades by an old gent in our town. The tranny was full of GL-5 oil when I got it and the synchros were totally shot to the point that you had to double clutch for every shift. I can't say that the damage to the synchros was caused by the GL-5 oil but I suspect GL-5 was at least a major contributing factor to their failure.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 7:07 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Wait .. we're now responsible for the content and direction of other peoples' posts? Where were you when RichardLW was showing us a photo of a grossly overheated top gear, claiming it to be proof of GL-5 damage of a brass synchro ring?

I've never claimed all GL-5 to be excellent choices, nor have I claimed GL-5 should be used by people running stock engines. I only recommended GL-5 oils that I trust, and to people who would benefit from it. At least you're now admitting "some" GL-4 oils shouldn't be used, and not all GL-5 is "bad" .. so you've gotten somewhere.

Your 912 Porsche trans should have been filled with Swepco 201, which is a mineral GL-5. Guys who mistakenly put synthetic GL-5 in their early transaxle (with early Porsche style synchros) will experience poor shifting, and may permanently damage parts. Once again, you're blaming "GL-5", when it's "synthetic" that should be blamed. This can be verified by any top tier Porsche shop.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 3:48 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

gears wrote:
Wait .. we're now responsible for the content and direction of other peoples' posts? Where were you when RichardLW was showing us a photo of a grossly overheated top gear, claiming it to be proof of GL-5 damage of a brass synchro ring?


You guys just love to give tacit approval to each others falsehoods with your silence. Just look at the moderator's note to the first post in this thread saying that a MT-1 spec means an oil is okay for a synchronized gear box. This claim is absolutely backwards as the Mt-1 spec is for unsynchronized heavy duty gear boxes, yet I don't think that any of the pro GL-5 posters corrected this comment.

Quote:
I've never claimed all GL-5 to be excellent choices, nor have I claimed GL-5 should be used by people running stock engines. I only recommended GL-5 oils that I trust, and to people who would benefit from it. At least you're now admitting "some" GL-4 oils shouldn't be used, and not all GL-5 is "bad" .. so you've gotten somewhere.


I have said repeatedly that these certain oils shouldn't be used. I also mentioned that I tried Redline MTL quite a while back and dumped it in short order as I didn't feel it was acceptable to run.

Quote:
Your 912 Porsche trans should have been filled with Swepco 201, which is a mineral GL-5. Guys who mistakenly put synthetic GL-5 in their early transaxle (with early Porsche style synchros) will experience poor shifting, and may permanently damage parts. Once again, you're blaming "GL-5", when it's "synthetic" that should be blamed. This can be verified by any top tier Porsche shop.


All the receipts that were with the car showed that it was being serviced by a Porsche dealer and engine work had been done by a well respected Porsche shop. At this point I don't remember what GL-5 oil was mentioned on the receipts and have no way of knowing when the damage to the syncrhos was actually done. I just know it had zero synchro action when I bought the car.

While pro GL-5 posters will mention that they use a certain oil (or three) most seem to give a blanket approval to the use of any GL-5 where a GL-4 is called for. I would not be here arguing if they did not. My objections to GL-5 aren't limited to VW gear boxes. I have seen way too many people dump it into all brands of automotive transmissions with bad results and have fought against its use in many industrial gear boxes over the years. An amazing number of people will pick up a shop manual, read that the gearbox in question should have 30wt oil in it and then pump if full of GL-5 because they want the extra protection a GL-5 oil supposedly gives. Then they wonder why the box experiences some odd failure in short order.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 6:18 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

You're speaking in broad generalities, and pointing fingers at anyone who accepts the idea of using a high quality Gl-5, apparently in any VW, under any circumstance.

You refuse to accept the relevance of comparing a virtually identical transaxle (Porsche, which has parts twice the size of VW) in my attempt to demonstrate that puny VW gears need the added protection of GL-5 when powered by engines 2-3 times that of VW's original design. (Mercedes Buses and specific truck types are OK in your own comparisons).

It's quite apparent that you (and Richard) don't understand the cause of the offset wear pattern found on highly stressed helical gears.

Your purchase of a 912 with worn out synchros (very common) is a strong indication to you that GL-5 is the culprit.

I'm to blame for inaccuracies in the posts of others, and we're all working in concert. Hmm ..
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 5:16 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Wildthings wrote:

I have said repeatedly that these certain oils shouldn't be used. I also mentioned that I tried Redline MTL quite a while back and dumped it in short order as I didn't feel it was acceptable to run.



Reline MTL is only 75-80 weight, of course it's too thin man!
You gotta relax. We got this figured out.

I don't see how using for instance the swepco 202 will do any permanent harm to a syncro, but if it DOES makes the box REALLY hard to shift you might bend a fork or something, but only if you try and FORCE it into gear which of course you should not do.

You might have to change the oil twice to get all that slippery stuff out of there and and get good shifts again, but that's all that should be required, the "damage" is not permanent, but some of the additives a little goes a long way, so once you put it in there it takes a few tries and some time to flush it out.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:35 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

My Vw, I use Vavoline synthetic 75w-90. Is this ok?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 6:21 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

modok wrote:


I don't see how using for instance the swepco 202 will do any permanent harm to a syncro, but if it DOES makes the box REALLY hard to shift you might bend a fork or something, but only if you try and FORCE it into gear which of course you should not do.

You might have to change the oil twice to get all that slippery stuff out of there and and get good shifts again, but that's all that should be required, the "damage" is not permanent, but some of the additives a little goes a long way, so once you put it in there it takes a few tries and some time to flush it out.


I don't know what a GL-5 oil does to the synchros and I am very willing to accept that not all GL-5 oils do do damage. But whatever damage a GL-5 oil does can happen very quickly and doesn't fix itself with multiple flushings of the box.

My first T-181 which had less than 30k on it when bought was stiff to shift and would grind second and third with every shift. I ran GL-4,5 oil in this box and it always shifted crappy, even immediately after a rebuild. At the time I didn't realize that a GL-4,5 rated oil was not suitable for use in a VW transmission.

My first bus was pretty much the same as above, it ground second and third with every shift unless care was taken. When I changed the tranny out to fix the problem it shifted fine at first on GL-4 oil, but the shifting went to crap when I was having trouble finding a GL-4 oil and listened to an all knowing VW guru and filled the box with GL-5. Even though I left this oil in the box for a very short time and flushed the box many times it never shifted all that well again.

When I bought it, the shifter on my Syncro could barely be moved when cold and it would pretty much grind every gear unless double clutching or extreme caution was used. The records with the rig clearly showed that the box had been filled with GL-5 oil early on. No amount of trying different oils totally fixed the shifting.

My '77 bus was hard to shift when I got it, grinding second and third with every shift, I used MTL in an attempt to get the synchros ruined by the use of GL-5 to shift better. When I had the tranny replaced it shifted fine on GL-4 oil but once swapped over to the GL-5 oil now recommended by GTA the shifting immediately went to $hit, and while it improved when once again refilled with GL-4 it still doesn't shift as well as it did before the GL-5 was used.

My present T-181 grinds second and third and had GL-5 oil in it when I bought it, it shifts better now with Gl-4 but certainly isn't perfect.

As I mentioned on the 912 I owned briefly the synchros were totally shot.

In comparison the tranny in my 83 1/2 Vanagon shifts nice and smooth, it has never seen anything but GL-4 to the best of my knowledge. The other few VW's I have owned which have never seen anything but GL-4 have shifted just fine as well. With around a million miles of driving VW at this point most of it with GL-4 lubes in the gear boxes, I have experienced zero lubricant related failures.

While the damage GL-5 will do to the rear section of a Roadranger transmission is very obvious I don't really understand what it does to a VW gear box, but for my own rigs it has damaged the synchros in every VW transmission I have tried it in.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:34 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Thomas323is wrote:
My Vw, I use Vavoline synthetic 75w-90. Is this ok?

You have to be more specific man! I ran Valvoline synthetic 7 years ago in my type-1 and it worked great, but then I go into he FLAPS a few years after that and the oil I bought replaced with a new formula, which from reading the label appears to not be correct, so I went to the webside and what I was using is discontinued in america, so, are you in europe? what kind of VW?
what does the oil say on the label?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 5:41 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Wildthings wrote:
modok wrote:


I don't see how using for instance the swepco 202 will do any permanent harm to a syncro, but if it DOES makes the box REALLY hard to shift you might bend a fork or something, but only if you try and FORCE it into gear which of course you should not do.

You might have to change the oil twice to get all that slippery stuff out of there and and get good shifts again, but that's all that should be required, the "damage" is not permanent, but some of the additives a little goes a long way, so once you put it in there it takes a few tries and some time to flush it out.


I don't know what a GL-5 oil does to the synchros and I am very willing to accept that not all GL-5 oils do do damage. But whatever damage a GL-5 oil does can happen very quickly and doesn't fix itself with multiple flushings of the box.

My first T-181 which had less than 30k on it when bought was stiff to shift and would grind second and third with every shift. I ran GL-4,5 oil in this box and it always shifted crappy, even immediately after a rebuild. At the time I didn't realize that a GL-4,5 rated oil was not suitable for use in a VW transmission.

My first bus was pretty much the same as above, it ground second and third with every shift unless care was taken. When I changed the tranny out to fix the problem it shifted fine at first on GL-4 oil, but the shifting went to crap when I was having trouble finding a GL-4 oil and listened to an all knowing VW guru and filled the box with GL-5. Even though I left this oil in the box for a very short time and flushed the box many times it never shifted all that well again.

When I bought it, the shifter on my Syncro could barely be moved when cold and it would pretty much grind every gear unless double clutching or extreme caution was used. The records with the rig clearly showed that the box had been filled with GL-5 oil early on. No amount of trying different oils totally fixed the shifting.

My '77 bus was hard to shift when I got it, grinding second and third with every shift, I used MTL in an attempt to get the synchros ruined by the use of GL-5 to shift better. When I had the tranny replaced it shifted fine on GL-4 oil but once swapped over to the GL-5 oil now recommended by GTA the shifting immediately went to $hit, and while it improved when once again refilled with GL-4 it still doesn't shift as well as it did before the GL-5 was used.

My present T-181 grinds second and third and had GL-5 oil in it when I bought it, it shifts better now with Gl-4 but certainly isn't perfect.

As I mentioned on the 912 I owned briefly the synchros were totally shot.

In comparison the tranny in my 83 1/2 Vanagon shifts nice and smooth, it has never seen anything but GL-4 to the best of my knowledge. The other few VW's I have owned which have never seen anything but GL-4 have shifted just fine as well. With around a million miles of driving VW at this point most of it with GL-4 lubes in the gear boxes, I have experienced zero lubricant related failures.

While the damage GL-5 will do to the rear section of a Roadranger transmission is very obvious I don't really understand what it does to a VW gear box, but for my own rigs it has damaged the synchros in every VW transmission I have tried it in.


Maybe the oil isn't your problem. Sounds like you take out second and third on your transaxle. Do you downshift with the clutch in a lot? working down through the gears as you slow?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 8:14 pm    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

My experience is they can come back to life to a degree, but your experience is noted, I believe it and probably IS some truth to it.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 5:01 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Casting Timmy wrote:

Maybe the oil isn't your problem. Sounds like you take out second and third on your transaxle. Do you downshift with the clutch in a lot? working down through the gears as you slow?


All these rigs were either bought with problems or the problems developed instantly when the boxes were filled with GL-5. By playing around with different oils, I have been able to get most of the boxes to shift fairly well, but not perfectly and have put a lot of miles on some of them. The Syncro box is untouched (at least during our nearly 25 year ownership) with just shy of 300K on the clock).

I will admit that the wife likes to down shift at quite high speeds when slowing down, but so long as the box is shifting well to start with this doesn't seem to cause any problem.
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 7:06 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

One can never discount the direct experience of another individual, especially a hands-on vehicle owner. On the other hand, you have to weigh the opinion of a few against the opinion of many.

One of the most common misconceptions is that shift "feel" equates to oil "quality". VW discusses this quandary in a 40-year-old bulletin to their certified mechanics:
“The composition of a transmission oil has a varying effect on the service life of different parts of the transmission. For example, oils which increase the life of synchromesh units have the opposite effect on the ring and pinion. The selection of the correct transmission oil is, therefore, always a compromise between requirements which are often in complete opposition.”

When it comes to oil selection, those directly involved in motosports or transaxle repair rely on their own trial & error, as well as the repeated opinions of their peers. If one were to ignore what others in their field of expertise have to share, or if one were to rely solely on spec sheets, it would take forever to weed through what actually works and what doesn't.

Case in point: Virtually all of the most popular GL-5 gear oils carry the MT-1 classification. While these oils are used primarily in the trucking industry or in stationary heavy equipment, for decades motorsports has relied heavily on high EP oils for maximum R&P protection. Delvak, Lubrication Engineers 9919 & 9920, Swepco 201 & 210 .. all of these oils carry the MT-1 designation, and all of them are extremely successful in motorsports .. although none of them are advertised for that specific purpose.

The falsehood about VW Type II transaxles "not having a significant hypoid off-set" (to ever warrant GL-5) hasn't come from any VW experts .. it's come solely from Red Line Oil Company. The truth is that VW Type II transaxles have a very significant 10mm hypoid offset.

Red Line has certainly earned a reputation .. here's what our gear cutter has to say:
"Redline !!! From our experience it’s the worst oil on the market its full of additives and when its spins fast all these additives separate and you are left with nothing to protect the meshing gears.
Most people that were running it were always making comments that they would find a gunky paste inside all the cavities. What we learned was that the gunky paste was the additives separating from the blend. There was nothing left to protect the gears. The oil is total rubbish."


Once again, while GL-4 is more than adequate for stock applications, I'd recommend a high quality GL-5 for any Vanagon with significantly upgraded horsepower, or any Bug transaxle pushed to its limits (road-racing or off-road).
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Casting Timmy
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Joined: August 04, 2012
Posts: 1221
Location: Kansas City, Kansas
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 11:12 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

Slowing down off the highway and pushing in the clutch and then putting it into third a couple seconds later makes the third gear synchro spin the mainshaft and clutch up to speed as the wheels are still turning the pinion shaft. Then the same thing happens a few seconds later with second gear, this is the normal operation…..but the farther the speed difference of the two shafts the more the synchro will work and wear. Next time you remove your fill plug try and sneak a peek at your synchros, specifically the distance from the back of the synchro to the front of the gear. I have a feeling you might see minimal spacing there.

I like to check the synchros on the cone when rebuilding to make sure they are grippy. Sometimes you can scuff up the cones to get some more grip.

I learned to rebuild transaxles as coming from the V8 world I was always hard on transmissions. I think everyone no matter how good they are at driving has a tendency to break a certain part of the car more than other parts. Some people are motors, others trans, other rear ends……I just have the luck to be the one that now requires the motor to come out to fix what I usually destroy. Hopefully though I’ve calmed down since my teenage years and won’t break as much stuff anymore…..but I do plan on getting a trailer shortly after I get it running, so I’m not banking on that.
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Wildthings
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Joined: March 13, 2005
Posts: 50254

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 4:50 am    Post subject: Re: GL 4 or GL 5 - "Official Gear Lube Topic" Reply with quote

gears wrote:
One can never discount the direct experience of another individual, especially a hands-on vehicle owner. On the other hand, you have to weigh the opinion of a few against the opinion of many.

One of the most common misconceptions is that shift "feel" equates to oil "quality". VW discusses this quandary in a 40-year-old bulletin to their certified mechanics:
“The composition of a transmission oil has a varying effect on the service life of different parts of the transmission. For example, oils which increase the life of synchromesh units have the opposite effect on the ring and pinion. The selection of the correct transmission oil is, therefore, always a compromise between requirements which are often in complete opposition.”


We are not dealing with 40 year old technology here. To think that GL-5 oils have changed/improved over the last 40 years, while GL-4 oils have not is simplistic. Newer GL-4 oils offer similar resistance to wear to that similarly priced GL-5 oils, check the 4 ball wear test results for both GL-4 and GL-5 oils.

Quote:
When it comes to oil selection, those directly involved in motosports or transaxle repair rely on their own trial & error, as well as the repeated opinions of their peers. If one were to ignore what others in their field of expertise have to share, or if one were to rely solely on spec sheets, it would take forever to weed through what actually works and what doesn't.

Case in point: Virtually all of the most popular GL-5 gear oils carry the MT-1 classification. While these oils are used primarily in the trucking industry or in stationary heavy equipment, for decades motorsports has relied heavily on high EP oils for maximum R&P protection. Delvak, Lubrication Engineers 9919 & 9920, Swepco 201 & 210 .. all of these oils carry the MT-1 designation, and all of them are extremely successful in motorsports .. although none of them are advertised for that specific purpose.


It is still wrong headed for the moderator to claim "The MT1 designation, which almost all current GL5 fluids contain, eliminates any fear of using GL5." If anything the MT1 specification is a warning that that particular oil may give problems if used in a synchronized gear box, particularly one in a heavy truck. People like to cling to the belief that GL-5 oil will always give the best protection to a transmission, but for the last 45 years or so there have been numerous transmission designs where GL-5 flat out should not be used, yet people dump it in anyway and then wonder why their transmission has problems.

Quote:
The falsehood about VW Type II transaxles "not having a significant hypoid off-set" (to ever warrant GL-5) hasn't come from any VW experts .. it's come solely from Red Line Oil Company. The truth is that VW Type II transaxles have a very significant 10mm hypoid offset.


I will assume you meant this as a joke, a 10mm offset would have loading only slightly different from a spiral bevel gear.

Quote:
Red Line has certainly earned a reputation .. here's what our gear cutter has to say:
"Redline !!! From our experience it’s the worst oil on the market its full of additives and when its spins fast all these additives separate and you are left with nothing to protect the meshing gears.
Most people that were running it were always making comments that they would find a gunky paste inside all the cavities. What we learned was that the gunky paste was the additives separating from the blend. There was nothing left to protect the gears. The oil is total rubbish."


I think it is pretty well established that Redline has made some crappy GL-4 oils, even Redline admits to such.

Quote:
Once again, while GL-4 is more than adequate for stock applications, I'd recommend a high quality GL-5 for any Vanagon with significantly upgraded horsepower, or any Bug transaxle pushed to its limits (road-racing or off-road).
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