Originally posted by todras:
Originally posted by Big Jim:

I still have the opinion that any high quality manual transmission oil that is as thin as ATF or as heavy as 75W90 should work fine in this transmission. So why didn't Red Line's product hold up?





1 word. Additives.

Not that my opinion on this matters much, but I concur. Logically, think of the transmission fluid in aluminum cases as a PH "neutral" compound. The additives in that package can either tip the scale in one direction or another, OR keep the formulation neutral. I'm sure with anything else in this world, the engineers had to play a balancing game when selecting a fluid to their specs due to the nature of the aluminum case and brass and other metals found in the gearset and synchros/blockers. I'm no chemist ... hell, for all I know, aluminum cases might like a higher PH and be more prone to working "cleaner" in an acidic environment ... the example was merely to demostrate an example metaphorically.

For Sale: 1997 Explorer XLT V8 AWD