Urgent Clutch Swap Gone Wrong

[7.3IDIDSL]

Well i just got back from the store. The first store i went to didnt carry any Mobil like cheeper recommended but they had a huge line of RP and they even had 15w40 RP but they only had 5 litres which wasnt enough for me and i couldnt really wait for them to order more. So i went to a different store and they had a huge line of Mobil. pretty much any wt you could want...but no 15w40. the closest i could get to 15w40 was 15w50 so the oil will be alittle thicker when cold then the 15w40 would be. i dunno if getting the 15w50 was a good idea but im going to give it a try.

wow after re reading cheepers post i see he said he gets 15w50 istead of 15w40 so it looks like i did get the right stuff.

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

 

[7.3IDIDSL]

Well got some good new and bad news. I got the 15w50 in the truck. You said to put 2Gallons in the trans. Well 2 Gallons is 7.6 litres. so i bought 2 5 litres jugs of mobil 1 15w50. I put one full jug in the trans. so thats 5 litres. then i put maybe 2/3 or a little less of the last jug in there. so i should be around 2 gallons on fluid in there. i hop in and start her up and the sound has gone away considerably...but i can still hear it slightly. but considering what it was before and what it is now im very happy. I bet i could inscrease my idle a little and that would clear up most of the sound. so i get in and go for a ride. right away i notice what you were talking about when you said the sound will come back around 1200 rpm whatever i just will try not let it drop below 1200 rpm to much and if it does ill just take it out of gear or something...no big deal. So i get out on the main street and start accelerating and i cant get it to go into gear without grinding. if i let the rpms drop right down then sometimes it will go in without grinding but not always. i think i went too thick with the fluid. what could i use that would be alittle thinner than the 15w50?

 

[typ4]

I use syn atf with a pint of lucas power steering conditioner. The synchros in the zf dont like heavy oil, mine also clashed when I tried motor oil. I couldnt get it into gear at all with gear oil.
The loud roaring under low sped load will never go away, just keep it wound up a little.

Did your disc have springs in it???

 

[typ4]

Sped, that is a special technical term.

 

[RLDSL]

Well got some good new and bad news. I got the 15w50 in the truck. You said to put 2Gallons in the trans. Well 2 Gallons is 7.6 litres. so i bought 2 5 litres jugs of mobil 1 15w50. I put one full jug in the trans. so thats 5 litres. then i put maybe 2/3 or a little less of the last jug in there. so i should be around 2 gallons on fluid in there. i hop in and start her up and the sound has gone away considerably...but i can still hear it slightly. but considering what it was before and what it is now im very happy. I bet i could inscrease my idle a little and that would clear up most of the sound. so i get in and go for a ride. right away i notice what you were talking about when you said the sound will come back around 1200 rpm whatever i just will try not let it drop below 1200 rpm to much and if it does ill just take it out of gear or something...no big deal. So i get out on the main street and start accelerating and i cant get it to go into gear without grinding. if i let the rpms drop right down then sometimes it will go in without grinding but not always. i think i went too thick with the fluid. what could i use that would be alittle thinner than the 15w50?

Yes you could go a lot thinner. chances are that stuff is so thick it's keeping the gears and shafts spinning at all the same speed . The heavier the lube the more it wants to carry the gears along for the ride.

If you wanted to drop in price a bit ( which I would strongly suggest until you find a wt you can live with )you could go with a mineral gear oil, but has to be GL-1, with no extreme pressure additives ( stuff that makes gear oil sticky ) or you'll be back in the same boat ) a straight 90 wt would be about the same as where you are so a straight 80 wt GL-1 spec gear oil would be a bit thinner. You won't find that critter in a parts store, but most big farm stores still carry that sort of thing, lots of farm equipment requires it.

There are a few other synthetic options as well

Might want to run some cleaner through the tank to make sure your injectors are good and clean, since injectors that are firing unevenly can contribute to gear/flywheel impulse noises.

 

[7.3IDIDSL]

well at this point im open to any suggestions. tomorrow im going to drain some of the fluid out of the trans. Im going to put it just a hair over where it normally is filled too. and see if that helps at all. My buddy says eather the 15w50 is too thick or the huge overfilling of the trans is affecting the gears and thats why i cant get it in gear. So im going to drain some fluid and see what happens. if it is still grinding then im going to try and thinner fluid and hopefully ill find something that works before i go broke from buying tons of oil.

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

You guys have me wondering if I ought to drain mine and try a 2-gallon overfill with synthetic ATF to see if that will keep it quiet AND make it shift better...

Hey MEL, you never did chime in about how yours shifts with the straight 30W...

 

[Agnem]

No problems shifting with streight 30 wt. A little sluggish on cold days in the first few miles, but not enough to be a concern. Another idea I have which I don't think anyone has tried yet, is to wrap the transmission in a transmission blanket. The kind they sell for racing. Maybe some padding around it will quiet it up some. It's aluminum, so moisture isn't a concern.

 

[BigRigTech]

50W synthetic cured the noise in mine.

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

50W synthetic cured the noise in mine.

But how does it shift? Any problems with grinding? Any noise when lugging along at low RPMs?

 

[BigRigTech]

Not really unless I'm lugging it backing up slowly or crawling in traffic with the truck pushing the tranny and causing some chatter....My tranny has about 285,000KM on it....It's worn.

 

[7.3IDIDSL]

Not really unless I'm lugging it backing up slowly or crawling in traffic with the truck pushing the tranny and causing some chatter....My tranny has about 285,000KM on it....It's worn.

My Tranny has 330,000 kms on it and its worn also.

Well guys after battling a pretty severe flu all last week i finally got back on the truck today. So last weekend i overfilled the tranny with 15w50 which cut down on the gear noise alot but there still was a little bit of noise that i was just going to get used too. That was until i tried to drive the truck and couldnt shift without grinding the gears at all.

So this weekend i took a buddys suggestion and drained the fluid back to the original level using the fill hole on the side of the tranny. Started her up and the gear noise sounds about the same as it was when the tranny was ovefilled last weekend. I get some noise at idle, its not bad enough that i cant over look it but its bad enough that others would look if i was sitting beside them. And i get gear noise around 1200rpm. So all in all the noise isnt bad i can handle that. As far as shifting goes i drove the truck around town for about 20 minutes and when i first left my house i went to downshift at the first stop light like i always do. Tried going from 3rd to 2nd and i wasnt thinking and went to throw it into 2nd and she let out a nice loud grind so i was like well wont try that again. I kept going and shifting through gears is fine except when going from second to thrid i get a little grunt as its going into gear. If i shift slower on that shift then i can get it to not grind at all. So after driving for awhile i figured i would try to down shift some more. This time i was a little more careful and i can downshift aswell as long as i take her easy.

So all in all with 15w50 in my tranny filled to the stock amout i get a bit of noise at idle and around 1200rpm and i can shift it through all gears. I cant afford anymore fluid right now but im thinking i would like to get a thinner fluid and see how that goes. I might try it when i have the money.

 

[BigRigTech]

ZF's don't like quick shifts, atleast mine doesn't......Same exact scenario that you described in 2nd and 3rd.

 

[FordGuy100]

This is why I'm going to stick with my T-19 . I'll figure a way to adapt an overdrive to it .

Anyways, I didnt know that they were so picky to what weight oil you use.