Grease found in Manual Tranny!?!

[simmons1]

I decided to replace the tranny fluid in my 97 Sport this weekend. The owner manual says to use Mercon ATF in the tranny, but when I pulled the drain plug it was covered with a silver grease! There was also liquid present that was the consistancy and smelled similar to ATF but it was almost black because of the grease type substance. Is this normal? I would expect a slightly dirty ATF to be the only thing to drain out, not grease. I changed the transfer case too. It looked like good, just normal ATF. Any thoughts.

 

[Pendarus]

I don't know for sure but I would think the silver stuff is metal particles that are attracted to a magnet in the drain plug. As for the black stuff that maybe ATF sludge. How often is the lube in a manual tranny supposed to last? If it is well past its prime the ATF maybe breaking down and causing sludge to build up.





I could be wrong!

 

[simmons1]

It may have been sludge but I am an enginneer and damned if it didn't look like grease. I stained my hands just like old fashion lithuim grease. Granted there were some metallic particles that were on the magnet but they were covered in this stuff. If it was sludge then there sure was a lot of it. I hope you are right and it is just sludge. FYI- the X has 75k on it and I am not sure it the fluid had every been changed. I bought it at 55k.

 

[Robert]

Probably just very fine metal particles. When I changed my fluid in my automatic, the pan magnet was covered in a substance identical to what you described. I cleaned the pan off and flushed enough fluid through the transmission until it came back out looking new. If after putting new fluid in, it shifts fine, I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

 

[Slick Rick]

Simmons1

It is very possible that your ATF in your 5 speed was that poor of a quality, and that it degraded that much. I have done searchs on that type of thing, not necessarly on this forum, but I have heard people talking about the poor quality of the ATF in the Manual transmission. One such case had silvery fluid, which brings me to another question: Do you do any towing? The stock clutch does not have that much towing power. A little towing every now and then won't hurt, however excessive towing will.

You can't really use a conventional ATF in that 5 speed due to all the stress it goes through. It just won't last very long. I changed my fluid at something like 40k miles, and I was upset of the condition of the ATF. It was in pretty bad shape. Use a synthetic for sure. Before you do that I would run a couple of litres/quarts of the conventional stuff first with the drain plug out to get all the crud out of it. When no more will come out, then put the synthetic in.


P.S. I have wrote about this topic so many times, I need to find the thread about it so you can read up about it. It has a lot of good info about it.

 

[Magicfan25]

I'm pretty sure whatever that stuff is on the plug is normal. When I worked for a copany with 30 or so big trucks the check points on the rear end always had that stuff, along with other metal particles that stoof up almost like little hairs or something.

 

[Slick Rick]

Yeah, I had metal filings on the end of my drain plug too. What I did was, in oreder to get most of them out (or at least so of them) I screwed the plug in and out until I got no more. It took three times until I got no more. I just think that simmons1 should run a quart or two of reg ATF in order to flush anything else that's probably in there after the step with the plug going in and out. After that, fill with a synthetic.

 

[simmons1]

These are all great comments! Thank you for you input. Since it is cake to change the tranny fluid, I believe I will take the advice and change the fluid out a couple of more times within the next month to flush the system and replace it with Mobil 1 syn ATF. Thanks again!