auto box reliability

AndersDK · Post by **AndersDK** » 11 Apr 2007, 22:57

getting closer now 8)

around here you can get the common add-on pump units to your powerdrill at low cost. These units comes in special versions for oils and fluids - albeit a bit dearer then. Otherwise a simple siphoning bulb may do the job.

Getting late now - must do 2 spheres on my runner before bedtime - see ya.

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 12 Apr 2007, 00:02

Screwfix do a priming bulb similar to the one on diesels for about £10 - and I have seen it in a B&Q Despot (Its used in central heating for priming)

This drill pump is oil proof
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produ ... water-pump

Mandrake · Post by **Mandrake** » 12 Apr 2007, 01:10

alan s wrote:As regards the amount of oil that can come out ata time; I find 2.5 is the norm, but if spun on the starter another .5 - 1 litre can be squeezed out, however, the pros working on these all the time it seems have a pump and can suck almost all of it out.

Alan S

Hi Alan,

Interesting idea, how many seconds are you turning the engine over ? How safe is it for the gearbox to run for a few seconds with very low oil ??

I'd certainly like to finish flushing mine as soon as possible, as god only knows what was in there before (could have even been Dex III for all I know

) and I'm a big believer in preventative maintainance...

Regards,
Simon

alan s · Post by **alan s** » 12 Apr 2007, 02:40

I usually turn over a couple and stop. Wait until it finishes draining again and repeat again and so on until only an occasional drip comes out.

Alan S

Clogzz · Post by **Clogzz** » 12 Apr 2007, 16:09

Mandrake wrote:each time you are only _diluting_ the old oil with new oil, never replacing it … I've done 5 changes on mine now of 2.5 litres each and it's still nowhere near the colour of the oil that's going in.

That’s worrying.
After two drains of Dexron III & II mix, the colour out was already colour in.
That was refilling with Transmax M.
Read a story somewhere of letting it drain all night, and most would come out.

Mandrake · Post by **Mandrake** » 12 Apr 2007, 20:50

Clogzz wrote:
Mandrake wrote:each time you are only _diluting_ the old oil with new oil, never replacing it … I've done 5 changes on mine now of 2.5 litres each and it's still nowhere near the colour of the oil that's going in.
That’s worrying.
After two drains of Dexron III & II mix, the colour out was already colour in.
That was refilling with Transmax M.
Read a story somewhere of letting it drain all night, and most would come out.

I'm using Transmax M as well.

What colour is Dexron III though ? If it's the same colour as Dexron II (red) how do you know that the old stuff is gone ? The first lot of stuff that came out of mine was very dirty/dark yellowy/browny stuff like you'd expect of very dirty engine oil

On the other hand the colour of oil on the dipstick on Dad's Xantia (3 years older) is a relatively clean red when he got it.

Regards,
Simon

alan s · Post by **alan s** » 12 Apr 2007, 23:05

Dex3 is red like Dex2 but there is one main difference; if D3 is used it gets cooked very early in the piece and will go black very quickly (over a couple of months) due to its physical properties. It operates at a totally different temperature hence the burning.
I have heard of owners running D3 successfully in the autos but they also tell me that they change the fluid every time they do the engine which IMO is an expensive way of dodging the issue of incorrect fluid and its associated problems, so obviously, the problems start when the oil gets overheated and breaks down.

Alan S

Clogzz · Post by **Clogzz** » 13 Apr 2007, 17:43

Mandrake wrote:how do you know that the old stuff is gone ?

Exactly as per Alan’s post, thank you, Alan !

Colour out was initially black, with dark red when held up against the light.
My then mechanic in Sydney who said to use Dexron III, also said to replace it every 20,000 km.
I’m surprised, but trust your calculation of still 23% after 3 changes.
I’ve done changes to Transmax M quite often since reading about this problem two years ago, and will do a change again ‘soon’.

It doesn’t look like there’s any talk of that from UK and European members, that the Dexron III peddlers were conning us only.

AndersDK · Post by **AndersDK** » 13 Apr 2007, 18:15

I have a feeling this is a spin off from the dealers claiming that full synt 5w40 is "the best you can get for your motor mate".
It certainly is - for the dealers that is - because of the higher price and dealer revenue

Mandrake · Post by **Mandrake** » 13 Apr 2007, 22:29

Clogzz wrote:
Mandrake wrote:how do you know that the old stuff is gone ?
Exactly as per Alan’s post, thank you, Alan !

Colour out was initially black, with dark red when held up against the light.
My then mechanic in Sydney who said to use Dexron III, also said to replace it every 20,000 km.

Hmm ok that has me a bit worried, maybe mine did have Dex III in it.

So if the car has done quite a bit of mileage since the last known oil change and its still a nice red colour its probably Dex II, but if its black its probably Dex III ?

I’m surprised, but trust your calculation of still 23% after 3 changes.

Well all I did was this - 2.5 litres from 6.5 litres is 4 litres, so 4 litres out of 6.5 stays behind after each change - so 62% of the oil stays behind after a change.

By the time you do the next change (few hundred Km's of driving) the old and new oil will be fully mixed (assuming they're close enough in properties to mix, naturally) so after the second change where 62% of the new mixture stays behind you now have 62% of 62% which is 38%, and after the 3rd mix and change cyle you have 62% of 38% which is 23%. (Give or take rounding)

Someone correct me if my reasoning is flawed!

I’ve done changes to Transmax M quite often since reading about this problem two years ago, and will do a change again ‘soon’.

Yeah me too. I have extra cause for concern because this is the same car that had red oil in the LHM system when I got it...(Dex II ? Dex III ? Who knows

)

Speaking of that, THAT needs a second change as the LHM still has a bit of a yellowy tinge to it...

Perhaps they just put Dex III in both the gearbox and the Hydraulic system.

Would anyone care to speculate on the effects on the Hydraulic system of long term running with Dex III ? (I have a few suspicions but I'll let others comment first)

Regards,
Simon

alan s · Post by **alan s** » 14 Apr 2007, 00:12

AndersDK wrote:I have a feeling this is a spin off from the dealers claiming that full synt 5w40 is "the best you can get for your motor mate".
It certainly is - for the dealers that is - because of the higher price and dealer revenue

Not really.

The way it all worked was GM patented the "Dexron" fluid for ATFs and Ford had "Mercon" IIRC and they were incompatable.
As time went on, Dexron name was split into various categories and Dexron developed into Dexron11 which eventually became Dexron 11D.
Whilst all this is going on, up pops Dexron111 which is a completely different kettle of fish to the other, but due to its name, it was assumed it was an upgraded version of Dexron11 which seemed to be lost on the mechanics who followed the assumption which was further reinforced by the makers then suggesting if you are about to do some heavy work, use D3 which has since been found to be mechanical murder.
If you sit the specs up for both fluids, you find one has a viscosity shown whilst the other doesn't.

http://www.penrite.com.au/html/s02_arti ... _top_id=55

http://www.penrite.com.au/html/s02_arti ... _top_id=55

According to an oil blender I know, this is because D2 is oil based but D3 is glycol based and is laced with additives. Nobody twigged that if D3 was an upgraded D2 then they would have naturally taken D2 off the market and superceded it with he later fluid; this didn't happen. I also heard from a CX owner in far northern Western Australia who sprung an LHM leak out in the middle of the desert, that he had filled his system with D3 to get himself back to base. When he drained the system and refilled with LHM, he kept the LHM/ATF mix in a glass jar and was amazed to find that it seperated just like oil and water and I would imagine D2 & D3 would do exactly the same. So in reality, saying a fluid is either D2 & D3 and that they are the same thing because they are "oils" is like saying all oils are the same in the engine. Anybody ever run garlic oil, Cod liver oil, gear oil or peanut oil in an engine?
It seems we might be getting a bit of light at the end of the tunnel now though, as there is a new generation of ATFs coming on stream that are supposedly compatable with either DExron or Mercon fluids and Dexrons containing Mercon have been around for a little while, so hopefully, we get rid of this misnomour and the risk factor can be taken out of owning an auto with a mystery history.

Alan S

Mandrake · Post by **Mandrake** » 14 Apr 2007, 01:00

alan s wrote:I also heard from a CX owner in far northern Western Australia who sprung an LHM leak out in the middle of the desert, that he had filled his system with D3 to get himself back to base. When he drained the system and refilled with LHM, he kept the LHM/ATF mix in a glass jar and was amazed to find that it seperated just like oil and water and I would imagine D2 & D3 would do exactly the same.

Hi Alan,

That comment caught my eye - with the oil in the Hydraulic system in my car when I got it, the red stuff and green stuff were clearly seperated too - when you looked in through the top of the tank all you saw was normal green. (Silly me for not investigating further, but it never occured to me that someone would be stupid enough to put something other than LHM in a tank that clearly says LHM only - I know now though

)

However after I had drained the oil out and put a sample in a glass jar to hold up to the light - the red stuff (whatever it was) was at the bottom, and there was about 5% of green LHM floating on the top.

At the time that puzzled me because Dex II is apparently less dense than LHM and therefore should have floated on the LHM, not the other way around. (Or for that matter if they were both mineral oils they should have just homogenized, not seperated)

If it was Dex III though that might explain both the seperation and the LHM floating on the top...grr

I still have that oil, unfortunately its now in a waste oil drum mixed up with a whole lot of engine oil and actual gearbox oil, so I can't do any more tests on it...

Regards,
Simon

Clogzz · Post by **Clogzz** » 15 Apr 2007, 17:20

Mandrake wrote:still a nice red colour its probably Dex II, but if its black its probably Dex III ?

I’d say so, Dexron II stays red while Dexron III soon turns black.
Black coming out is a good sign in that it indicates that the fluids are still mixed from the swirling of the impeller, before they get time to separate when parked and cooled down.

Someone correct me if my reasoning is flawed!

No risk of that !

The first change obviously drains part of the original mix, after that there’s the ‘diminishing return’.

the LHM still has a bit of a yellowy tinge to it

Clean, uncontaminated LHM does turn yellow in time.
Looks like they’ve used Dexron III everywhere.
Isn’t that the car that came from Japan ?
In places where LHM is nonexistent, they use hydraulic oil for earthmovers and farming machines, or an aviation hydraulic oil, called MIL spec … something.
Alan’s posted about that sometime somewhere, but I don’t remember the detail.

Mandrake · Post by **Mandrake** » 15 Apr 2007, 21:01

Clogzz wrote:
the LHM still has a bit of a yellowy tinge to it

Clean, uncontaminated LHM does turn yellow in time.

Why's that ? I havn't experienced that on any other Citroen yet. When I say yellowy tinge I should really say that it is completely yellow not green. (Yellow being a mixture of red and green dyes I guess)

Dad's Xantia which he's had more than a year now and which hasn't had an LHM change done by us still has nice bright clean and green LHM.

Mine turned from green to yellow in a few days after I did the initial change - presumably because there is approx half a litre out of the 5.4 litres of total oil in the system that would have been sitting in the piping and hydraulic units - so again a case of diminishing returns replacement - except in this case you can change 90% each time instead of about 34% so one more change should be enough to get it back to actual green.

Looks like they’ve used Dexron III everywhere.
Isn’t that the car that came from Japan ?

Yes it is, whereas the other two Xantia's we have are both New Zealand new. (Both sold in Christchurch too - they must have liked them down that way

)

It only stayed in Japan from '97 to '99 though, and had one owner in NZ from '99 right up until 2004, so the first LHM change in the maintainance schedule should have been done in NZ...

(unless it sprung a leak in Japan I guess)

Regards,
Simon

alan s · Post by **alan s** » 15 Apr 2007, 21:37

Isn't one of the oils recommended for some Xantia boxes that Esso L1172?
If so, I have heard it's a yellowish colour, so may be that.

From what I've read, Dexron fluids were originally used in dragline clutches and heavy earth moving equipment and the rights to it were bought by GM who it seems reverse engineered a transmission to apply it to. If so, then I presume this was the era where we went from the old high revving slow activating moaning type autos to the ones we have today with the more positive lock up on the drive and higher performance due to the savage friction enhancers they operate with.
I think you'll find the word "Dexron" is now a registered trade name to GM but other fluids such as Castrol Transmax M & Z are compatable with and contain similiar properties, they are slightly different. The yellow fluid as found and recommended in some Xantia and Peugeot 406 ZF boxes is from all account a different fluid again.

Alan S