Best gear oil?

[TooSlick]

Amsoil typically lasts for at least 500,000 miles in the diffs of OTR trucks ....Provided you keep the water out of it, it will last for at least ten years in most non-commercial applications, based on my twenty five years of experience with the product. I ran the same Amsoil gear lube for eight years in my 1976, Datsun 620 pickup, and for eleven years in the transaxle of my 1985 VW Jetta. In both cases, the stuff had hardly discolored....I've also been running the same gear lube for the past eight years in my current, 1995 Tacoma.

If you heavy towing you should still be able to go five times the severe service interval ....

Tooslick

[ February 16, 2004, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: 59 Vetteman ]

 

[sbc350gearhead]

I am currently using RP max-gear, and it seems to work well.

 

[widman]

I wonder whether the 75w90 is a cafe thing. My 02 Japanese built Toyota 4x4 4 door pickup says 80W-90 at 20,000 km intervals. (guess I should have changed it this morning as it hit 20,000 yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to put another 500 km of 4wheel mountains.)

 

[Steve S]

If you are going to change the diffs and the trans ,transfer cases, I would recommend Chevron ESI gear oil .

 

[Whimsey]

quote:

---

Originally posted by widman:
I wonder whether the 75w90 is a cafe thing. My 02 Japanese built Toyota 4x4 4 door pickup says 80W-90 at 20,000 km intervals. (guess I should have changed it this morning as it hit 20,000 yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to put another 500 km of 4wheel mountains.)

---

Wow! 20,000 km for a diff fluid change. That's like 12,400 miles. I guess Toyota feels that you are going to beat the living daylights out of the truck. I would venture to guess that Toyota doesn't even "publish" a diff fluid change, unless the diff is submerged in water, for the US models because they are usually not driven like trucks overseas are driven. I wonder if you used a quality synthetic diff fluid would you be able to go longer than 20,000 km before draining. Or do they assume that the diff will be submerged in water sometime so you might as well use dino fluid and change it every 20,00 km. I would venture to guess that the use of 75W-90 is cafe related and maybe a more "universal" fluid for the varied weather conditions in the US.

Whimsey

 

[Kestas]

quote:

---

Originally posted by widman:
I wonder whether the 75w90 is a cafe thing.

---

Little by little, automakers are now looking at the differential as a place to boost their CAFE readings. This includes using synthetic, and (my guess) perhaps lowering the viscosity requirements, same as Honda and Ford have done with 5w-20 engine oil.

 

[Mike_dup1]

I have used Amsoil gear lubes in all my equipment since the late 1970's. None better IMO. All mine fills are for life, I never had to change nor have I even considered it.

One friend has an old Jeep with a manual trans. That thing would not shift very good in cold weather. Was like that for many years and he always thought something was worn in the trans. He finally could not take it anymore and had a trans shop look at it. The rebuilt and he still had shifting problems. So he went back to the trans shop and the installed Amsoil gear lube in there. No more shift problems. The dino gear lube was too thick once the temp dropped below freezing and it was enough to make the shifts notchy, hard to get into 2, 3 4th. Probably never needed to rebuild the trans.

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
I recently started a thread under Heavy Equipment & Industrial Oils - it is headed "Castrol's gear lubricants and......."!

It may be of interest

Regards

[ February 16, 2004, 08:14 PM: Message edited by: Doug Hillary ]

 

[aldive]

Anyone notice a mileage increase ( duel ) when changing to Amsoil Series 2000?

 

[Scooby]

I have a 2002 Tacoma 5 speed 3.4 4wd Tacoma TRD. At 15k I changed my front and rear diff to Mobil 1, and the transmission and txfr case to Redline MT-90.

FYI: Get some PB Blaster at Walmart and spray the fill and drain plugs a few times a few days before time. Get a socket set of star or hex heads (forget which). It is a PAIN the first time.

Also, this may be common sense, but...take the fill plug out first. I made this mistake on my 1994 toy. Drained the lube, then couldnt get the fill plug out. Ended up having to heat it with a torch and use impact wrench.

 

[Rand]

I got redline 75w90 from myoilshop for 6$ a qt + shipping.
Ended up being like 113$(including shipping)
for 12 qts D4 ATF
4qt 75w90
1 15oz bottle injector cleaner
The Mobil 1 gear lube was 8.59/qt at advanced auto.. i lmao at them and walked out.
Autozone was slightly better at 7.99$/qt
Summit racing had redline, Royal purple, and some others for 8$/qt.. then I found the place I ordered from.. it was just to cheap to pass up.

 

[Flimflam]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thumper_sr5:
My maint. book on my 03 toyota tacoma 4x4 says
to change front and rear diff oil at 15,000. I
need 75W90, what is the best gear oil for me to
use? My first choise was Mobil 1 75w90 but it cost $9.00 a qt.

---

Best Gear Oil? Schaeffer Supreme Gear Oil.

 

[JohnBrowning]

As a long time Toyota fa mily I can say that we did ours gear lubes once a year! Depending on the year of the Toyota truck they varied between 12,000-15,000 mile intervals. Once a year was easier to remember and most people do 12,000 miles in a year easy! If you did water crossings etc you had to change it right now!!! We have never had a single transmission,transfer case or diff fail! We always use our trucks as trucks! If you are going to follow the the recomended change interval any quality gear lube will do. It can be hard to find their 75W90 at times!

Seeing how Toyota uses a third member set up with a drain plug and fill plug it is too easy to change the fluid! I use synthetic gear lubes and extend my change interval my Dad is faithful to the service schedule outlined by Toyota. The 75W90 GL5 has been standard fair for most of the trucks since well before 1986 so I doubt CAFE has a hand it that!

If you operate in the artic like conditions ever it is a good idea to use a synthetic gear lube. If you decide to stay with conventional gear lube check out Schaffers gear lubes. They are excellent and the price is decent!

P.S. THe drain plug is magnetic make sure you clean it of all of the black metal particles. Do not be alarmed this is normal!

 

[mf150]

Red Line's gear oil is top notch.

 

[JohnBrowning]

mf150, True!!! Redline gear oils do rock! I doubt that you would want to change it every 12K-15K miles though! I would never Redline in a vechile that saw a lot of wet trail use! I would hate to drain out Redline after 100 miles or something like that. If the vechile was being race, operated in mostly desert or never went through water fording then Redline is the top choice.

I bought Havoline 80W90 at Big Lots for $1.68 a quart! The old fluid was a year old and was still a clear yellow like miller light comeing out.

 

[speedy341]

I have an '03 Taco TRD Prerunner, and I too will be changing to synthetic. lube in the differencial. I've read on the net that the rear axle seals on the Toyotas are prone to leaks.

http://www.yotatech.com/~corey/tech/dcrim1_oilseal/dcrim1_oilseal.htm

I'm a bit concerned that synthetic fluids may promote the leaking. I'm still going to use synthetic anyway because my truck still has 20,000 miles left on the warranty. Hopefully if a leak develops, it'll happen before the warranty expires.

 

[JohnBrowning]

Not counting cars just Toyota trucks my family has owned 9 Toyota Trucks and the diff's have never leaked. I once took the third member out of one just to look at it and compare it to a Ford 9". I reused the old gasket and it still does not leak.

THe older Toyota trucks leaked at the rear trans output flange and the old solid axle trucks leaked at the front knuckle often! I have a 4Runner that it 18 years old and it still does not leak. The front inspection cover on the front dif is starting to leak though!

If you are really worried about this some Auto-Rx mixed in with what ever lube you choose synthetic or natural would help. I would suspect that the ones that leaked were exposed to a lot of salt, calcium/Magnessium cholride, urea or other caustic substance. Not changeing the fluid as recomended or a lot of sand raceing can also damage the pinion seal. It is almost always the outer most pinion seal that goes on any third member styke rear end. Inspection cover gaskets are what leak first on other rear ends.

Not changeing the fluid as recommended allows alot of metalic debrigh to imbed in the seals in the entire rear end. If you look at failed seals you will see a lot of metalic contamination! Getting the metal shaveing out when you change the fluid extends the life of all seals. Diff.'s generate rather large particles and alot of them compared to an engine. They can embed and leave micro tears in the seal. It is only a matter of time before they fail under these conditions. TO add insult to injury most people do not change their gear lube and oxidation speeds the hardening of the seals. Gears generate a lot of heat!

 

[cryptokid]

redline, there is nothing else, espically for manual transmissions.

 

[VaderSS]

What about NEO?

 

[sprintman]

Great reputation in gear oils but the cost makes RL look cheap.