Is it Worth Doing a Use Oil Analysis on Tranny Fluid ?

[Idrinkmotoroil]

I've always thought of having tranny fluid analyzed to see if my tranny is working with some of the alternate fluids I've tried and used. But every time I've dumped my tranny fluid it had a lot of metal particulate, you could see it under a bright light, lots of metal flake floating in suspension. I think if I did a UOA on it that the readings would be in the 1000's of ppm's or even 100,000s of ppms since you could visually see all the metal flake. Is it worth doing UOA's in such conditions ?, the tranny is less than one year old so maybe it has been breaking in over the past year.

any opinions on this ?

thanks

Joey

 

[XS650]

It all comes down to whether or not you would actually do something if the UOA showed an emerging problem.

If you are like most people and would still just drive it until the tranmission failed, then there is no point in doing the UOA escept to satisfy your curiosity.

I think it's worth a transmission UOA because at the least, you can try a different lube if you see a problem. The UOA also gives you a score card so you can tell if you improved things with your lube change.

 

[Terry]

I wish some of the AT and MT lube oil analysis customers I have done work for that are BITOG's would chime in as to how useful a troubleshooting and predicitve maintenance tool UOA is for these units.

I take great effort and detail on AT evaluations using UOA. All for the same price as the engine testing.

 

[Ken2]

At the minimum, analysis of the ATF could be a money saver by letting us know if the fluid was good for more miles, or if it needed to be changed right now to protect the transmission. Properly done fluid flushes cost a lot.


Ken

 

[Idrinkmotoroil]

thanks for all the replies, I think I will end up doing an analysis based on all the info you guys have provided.

How about all of the metal flakes seen in my past tranny fluid changes under a bright light, is this normal for used tranny fluid ?. I'm just not used to seeing so much metal particles with the naked eye , its different than used motor oil from what I can tell.

 

[MolaKule]

Idrink,

Again, what kind of vehicle, manual or auto? Daily driver or occasional racing?

In a manual tranny metal flakes, if very small, are usually normal wear. What color are the flakes? Shiny silver usually means gear wear, yellow usually means synchronizer or sleeve bearing wear.

If you are seeing large flakes and you have 1/32" long or larger whiskers on the magnetic drain plug, that indicates more than normal wear, and could indicate incorrect lube viscosity, poor EP/AW additive package, overheating of fluid, etc.

In an automatic tranny, I don't expect to see anything but black, carbonized clutch material floating around with a little bit of metallic, grey paste in solution or settling to the bottom of the pan.

Either way, UOA's with trending will give you an indication of what's right or wrong with your setup.

 

[MolaKule]

Type of car, mileage, manual or auto tranny?

I think UOA's are great for trending and for showing possible failure modes.

 

[Idrinkmotoroil]

Molakule, this is on my 2004 Dodge SRT-4 turbocharged 2.4 L, 5 speed new venture T-850 tranny. We've chatted about this recently. The tranny spec from the factory is ATF+4 fluid, I have tried Redline C+ATF and GM Synchromesh in the past and I am currently running Redline MTL. The heavy metal flakes I've seen were when I ran the GM Synchromesh and ATF fluids. I havent checked the MTL fluid yet but hope to soon.

The metal flakes are very small in size but they appear heavy in numbers, they are suspended in the fluid, when you swirl the fluid they create a swirling cloud like effect. And this is when you look at the fluid under a bright light. Not exactly sure of the colour as the fluids mask it a bit, it is either shiny silver or shiny gold/bronze. If you let the fluid sit a few days or a week in a container the particles drop out of suspension and again are very small, smaller than the size of a pin head I would guess. They are just so many particles in suspension seen with the naked eye I would think a UOA would reveal several thousand ppms of metal particulate. That would be my guess, since most motor oil that you test in UOA's you can't see particulate in suspension with the naked eye.

Vehicle is used in daily driving, last time I checked the used fluid the vehicle had about 15,000 kms on the car, and is less than one year old. The car can be driven hard at times with the turbo at the disposal, it runs hot as well, the tranny basically is pretty heavy duty almost truck like. I dont have a magnetic plug on it, this tranny uses a very unconventional plug, looks more like a thin disc that sits in the tranny housing flush with the surface and you use an allen key to remove it.

 

[Flash]

'Drinker',

That plug is only unconventional if you've never driven a VW. You may want to check the size and thread on it the next time you have it out and then see if it cross references with the same plug on a VW 2.0L 5-speed. You may find that some VW enthusiast parts manufacturer makes a magnetized version.

Cheers,
Ashley

 

[Idrinkmotoroil]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Flash:
'Drinker',

That plug is only unconventional if you've never driven a VW. You may want to check the size and thread on it the next time you have it out and then see if it cross references with the same plug on a VW 2.0L 5-speed. You may find that some VW enthusiast parts manufacturer makes a magnetized version.

Cheers,
Ashley

---

thanks for the info. tip, I may try to do that in the near future, I'd like to see a magnetic plug on there if it is available.

On a side note, I just sent in a sample of my Redline MTL tranny fluid for a UOA. Anxious to see how it reads. I just gotta think the metal wear numbers have to be in the 1000's of ppms based on what I can see with the naked eye. crossing my fingers.

The strange thing is that I seen just as much metal wear particles in a fluid which I tried for only a few days during my attempt to find the best shifting fluid. I had GM Synchromesh in the tranny for only 1-2 days and when it came out it had as much or more metal flake particles as the Redline MTL did after one year's worth of driving. Perhaps the metal particles are just cleaning out from the tranny case , hard to say.

[ November 09, 2004, 06:24 AM: Message edited by: Idrinkmotoroil ]