My friend just bought a 97 Mustang Cobra and he wants to put in new transmission fluid for his 5 speed manual. The amsoil site recommends their synthetic universal ATF? Is this a good transmission fluid to use in his car?
Manual tranny fluid for 97 Cobra
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That one or maybe a little thicker Amsoil version.
What do you mean by the little thicker amsoil version?
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What makes some transmission makers recommend ATF and others 75W90 gear oil? Are the internals of different manual transmissions just different,or is it that different companies recommend different fluid specs? It seems like more recommend ATF over gear oil. Are the internals different on different manual transmissions,or are they all basically the same?
Amsoil Transynd equivalent is 7.3 cSt at 100C wheras Amsoil universal is 6.8 CST at 100C. Both would work, since they are similar to Mercon.
Does the '97 Cobra have the same Borg-Warner T45 5-speed as the '97 GT?
I've got a '97 GT with a Borg-Warner T45 and it seems to do okay with RedLine D4 ATF. Went to it with 8k miles on the clock, now have nearly 40k on it. It gets driven spiritedly. Okay, I'll be honest, my wife likes to race teenage boys with weed-wacker exhausts and then call them names that insult their manliness when she wins.
To be fair, I will note that when I had the stock fill ATF in there, I have some issues with the 5th gear (yes, 5th gear!) synchro not working right, causing a bad grind coming into 5th. (It was my father's car and out of warranty when I inherited it.) The D4ATF did nothing to help the 5th gear grind, so I just attributed it to the Borg-Warner T45 being a real piece of junk. Interestingly, if I recall correctly, Ford dropped Borg-Warner due to the poor quality and started exclusively using Tremec T45's sometime in/around 1998/1999?
Now here's where it gets odd - in the past year, the 5th gear grind has gone away. Maybe the D4 ATF has sheared down? I don't know.
I wouldn't hesitate to try the Amsoil or the RedLine D4 ATF. When I do the transmission oil change on mine in the spring, I'll use the Amsoil syn ATF.
later,
b
They very well could be different internally and it could be that today's ATF is good enough to handle the demands of manual transmissions. Perhaps in the past ATF wasn't good enough and gear oil was needed.
Personally, I think it's because it reduces cost, as the automaker only has to stock ATF for both auto and manual transmissions.
Sure, rear ends still use gear oil, but most require GL-5 oil. Some (maybe most?) transmissions have "yellow metal" (brass?) components that could be attacked by GL-5 additives and would require GL-4 oil. Seems easier to fill with ATF that already is in the plant than stock a GL-4 gear oil.
Just my few cents worth...
later,
b
Tremec (now TTC) bought Borg-Warner's manual transmission business. Or something like that.
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