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20W/50 In Gearbox When It's 100 Degrees Outside

jhorton3

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Is anyone putting thicker oil in their gearbox for these terribly hot summer days? I'm running 20w/50 and I'm thinking it might be too thin. I'm getting a lot of noise and shifting problems, and it seems to happen when it's really hot. Last night my wife and I were heading to dinner I was driving along in 2nd gear. Tried shifting to 3rd and it wouldn't go into gear at all. No grinding of the gears, just locked out. Tried 4th, same thing. Went back to 2nd gear and pulled into a parking lot. Worked the lever back and forth and she finally popped into other gears. Allowed it to cool for about 2 hours while eating. Drove home with no problems shifting. The outside temps had probably dropped a good 10 degrees.

After driving with the original 4 speed these past couple of weeks I'm seriously considering a Rivergate conversion as a winter project. For North Atlanta traffic this gearbox won't last long.
 
The factory data says 20-50W or 30W either should be fine.

The hotter it gets the thinner the oil, hang in there, only a month of hot weather left.
 
You might try a straight 30W (or mebbe 40W) and see if that makes any difference. I've had no ill effects from 20/50W in either of the "crashbox" trannies in the MGB in Florida over the last twenty years... <shrug>
 
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