anyone care to take a gander at this gear oil.....

[ryan roopnarine]

as i am not an old tymer like most of you, hence i don't know what used oil from a differential is supposed to look like (only down with the f dubya dee's before the e34). it had quite a bit of foam on the top when first drained, which subsided to a little bit after settling for an hour. it smells like coffee grinds/.old burnt coffee. ill have to wait till after i drain the bucket to see if the level was low, as i didn't establish any volume measuring metric before i drained the differential. tia.

[AllanS]

I have no clue, but I suddenly feel like changing my differential oil now...

[winfred]

it's only a problem when it's silver :) that looks varly normal for old fluid

[ryan roopnarine]

i wanna change it again too, its just that there's no way in hell i'm squeezing that much 75w fluid through a hose again, my hands still hurt from doing it. every time i stuck the hose into the case, it would come out a nasty brown color. i guess i could stagger it 1 bottle at a time, for the next two oil changes.


I have no clue, but I suddenly feel like changing my differential oil now...

[winfred]

go to a boat supply place and fork over a whole $5 for one of those lower unit pumps, it looks like a pump on a bottle of hand cleaner, if you have a dipstick less tranny you can use it there too, also on manual trannys. i am on the same one i got a few years ago

[ryan roopnarine]

i bought a marine pump, i use it to change power steering fluid, brake fluid, et cetera....i just can't find it now, despite having brought it from orlando expressly to change this crap.


go to a boat supply place and fork over a whole $5 for one of those lower unit pumps, it looks like a pump on a bottle of hand cleaner, if you have a dipstick less tranny you can use it there too, also on manual trannys. i am on the same one i got a few years ago

[Messerschmitt]

fits right on the bottle for ~$6.00. Plus it works great for changing ATF


Messerschmitt

[632 Regal]

that rear end dope looks fine, if there is a lot of metal settled at the bottom you may have problems.

[DanDombrowski]

I just changed the gear oil in the Vo (volvo 240, 175,000), and it looked pretty black and smelled bad just like that. I can't imagine doing it without that hand pump that I bought for a whole $5. When I did mommie's Jeep (at 66,000), the stuff was barely used, it looked just like the new oil I put in.
There were a bit more metal shavings on the magnet, but, then again, the gears are also a lot bigger.

I have no idea if the gear oil in the diff was ever changed in the volvo, or if I did it for the first time, but I do know that it hasnt been changed in the jeep until I did it.

I can also say that having a drain plug makes it SOOO much easier than taking off the back panel. I have a picture I took somehwere of the cover, and unknowingly had the reflection of our flag (it was july 4th weekend) in the background. Looks way cool.

[Sweetwater]

Hey, speaking of gear oil and the marine lower pump for fluid exchanges, I've got a question.

In the lower unit of my Merc outboard, I've always run a green high-grade gear oil that's 75-90W if I remember correctly. Any reason not to use the same stuff in any of my land based autos, trucks, motocycles? It doesn't seem to burn or discolor the way I've seen Mobil, Valvoline and others....

[ryan roopnarine]

what is the specific brand of the gear oil that you run in your outboard?

[George Davis]

Most (all?) rear wheel drive differentials have hypoid gears and require hypoid oil. If the outdrive oil is not a hypoid oil, it shouldn't be used in land vehicles.

[Sweetwater]

Quicksilver Premium Plus by Mercury. It's a 90W hypoid gear oil. I'm running it in the lower drive of a 125hp in-line 4 Merc. I really like the fact that it has never discolored or smelled burnt when I've changed it out. It's a translucent green. I also like the fact that despite running from very slow trolling speeds to flat out, there's very little in the way of accumulated metal on the plug magnet.

Would a marine application have a better quality lube?

[ryan roopnarine]

from this, it would appear that the quicksilver oil is made from conventional oil (like american castrol synthetic)....its up to you if you'd like to try it out in a application that specs "synthetic bmw oil". i might just go with the redline (bill r's suggestion) or use another full syn. like mobil 1.

http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000210#000000

[dave b]

I used the redline when I replaced mine 30k miles ago, and when I changed it out, it was still nice and red.

[JonE]

It's been my experience that any application that is "marine" usually costs almost twice as much as land based fluids, etc. Not sure if it will work, but I have been thinking about using Mobil 1 engine oil in my boat motor (OMC, Chevy 350)

[Bill R.]

like the shock and load that a differential has from takeoff...that and the fact that most lower units are water cooled





Quicksilver Premium Plus by Mercury. It's a 90W hypoid gear oil. I'm running it in the lower drive of a 125hp in-line 4 Merc. I really like the fact that it has never discolored or smelled burnt when I've changed it out. It's a translucent green. I also like the fact that despite running from very slow trolling speeds to flat out, there's very little in the way of accumulated metal on the plug magnet.

Would a marine application have a better quality lube?

[winfred]

also it may have some additives geared towards this lower temp and to deal with water contamination


like the shock and load that a differential has from takeoff...that and the fact that most lower units are water cooled