Gearbox + Redline = Problem ???

AB7 · Postby **AB7** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:13 pm

Hi Guys, Recently I replaced my gearbox oil with Redline Lightweight Shockproof.
It does wonder to the notchiness on my 6 speed, but I noticed first thing in the morning I have hard time of selecting any gear...I mean any gear!.

I need to rev the car up and pull the gear in. After that, everything seems to be fine again. It only happend after I leave the car overnight.

My car only done 21.000K and this never happen before.
Any thoughts?

bigdog · Postby **bigdog** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:31 pm

Sounds like the clutch is not working properly to me?

Andrew · Postby **Andrew** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:52 pm

I have found a similar type of 'issue' in my car, in that it is harder to select a gear when it is cold.

Once it warms up its like a hot knife through butter

Babalouie · Postby **Babalouie** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:57 pm

I had the same issue, but with Redline Blue, except that when it was really hot the shift would become very stiff as well.

Swapped it out to normal oil, and all was fine again

fattima · Postby **fattima** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:04 pm

LightWeight Shockproof is not recommended fro most syncro type trans
http://www.redlineoil.com/products_gear ... tegoryID=6
I do not have experience with it but have read on another forum of people having problems with shockproof in syncro boxes

AB7 · Postby **AB7** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:53 pm

tick4d wrote:
AB7 wrote:Hi Guys, Recently I replaced my gearbox oil with Redline Lightweight Shockproof.
It does wonder to the notchiness on my 6 speed, but I noticed first thing in the morning I have hard time of selecting any gear...I mean any gear!.

I need to rev the car up and pull the gear in. After that, everything seems to be fine again. It only happend after I leave the car overnight.

My car only done 21.000K and this never happen before.
Any thoughts?

What were you trying to achieve by putting it in ?

Well, some ppl here put them in and saw great result in improving their gear shift.

I believe Big Dog got them as well.

Garry · Postby **Garry** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 2:58 pm

I tried some Royal Purple synthetic in my NA and had a similar result. Once the oil warmed up the gearchange was awesome, only problem was that it took about 15km for the oil to warm up enough to change gears properly, which is 3/4 of the way to work every morning. I switched back to povo non-synthetic Castrol oil and never had a problem again.

fattima · Postby **fattima** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:57 pm

I'm using the royal purple oil and mine is hard to shift (not impossible) when cold. The box was harder to shift when cold with the previous oil (unkown brand) so it was a small step up for me! I have some of the Castrol at home so I might give it a bash.

Sheck · Postby **Sheck** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:08 pm

I use the red (heavy shockproof) redline oil in my 6 speed and it hasn't given me any troubles at all. I think the yellow and blue are too thin in our gearboxes.

Dave

Postby **Okibi** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 8:15 pm

Most MX-5 owners use MTL i've chosen to use MT90.

bigdog · Postby **bigdog** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 9:47 pm

Redline Oils Australian website lists MTL (Lightweight Shockproof or Blue) as the recommended oil for our manual gearboxes. Mine has done 40000km on MTL without a problem. Why argue with the manufacturer? The US site's disclaimer on syncro transmissions was put there for legal reasons I am led to believe.

This has been canvassed before in this forum - Gear change quality has a lot to do with the mechanism itself, the age and wear on the syncros and how you drive the car. Sheck uses his for drifting - probably the hardest work a gearbox can do, and I would switch to Shockproof Heavy in that case myself. My car is a daily driver and dríven fairly gently, and the MTL improved my shift out of sight. Five speed boxes should be fine with good old Castrol etc as they don't seem to suffer from the balky change that can affect the six speed boxes.

I repeat my first statement though - if it is hard to get into gear without 'revving the engine' I would suspect a draging clutch, not faulty oil...

Hellmun · Postby **Hellmun** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:33 pm

I swapped from Penrite Sin 75 to lightweight shock-proof and it was like the syncho on 3rd gear grew back....That's a 2001 NB8B with 39,000k's.

What's the temperature like where you are? Is it parked on a very steep driveway? Do you know anything about how hard those 21,000k's were it had previosly done?

Mistreated you can kill clutches and Syncho's very very quickly....if the only variable changed has been the oil I would consider a bad batch of oil. Contamination from the previous oil etc....

Locutus · Postby **Locutus** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:43 pm

Garry wrote:I tried some Royal Purple synthetic in my NA and had a similar result. Once the oil warmed up the gearchange was awesome, only problem was that it took about 15km for the oil to warm up enough to change gears properly, which is 3/4 of the way to work every morning. I switched back to povo non-synthetic Castrol oil and never had a problem again.

fattima wrote:I'm using the royal purple oil and mine is hard to shift (not impossible) when cold. The box was harder to shift when cold with the previous oil (unkown brand) so it was a small step up for me! I have some of the Castrol at home so I might give it a bash.

interesting... my royal purple is giving me the same problem. let us know how you go fattima.

manga_blue · Postby **manga_blue** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 1:00 pm

I had the Redline shockproof in for a year then switched to Castrol Syntrans 75W/85 Manual.

I'm regretting it. Overall the gearbox is a fair bit quieter on Castrol but it baulks a lot more going into my problem gear, 3rd, than it did with Redline.

I'll go back to Redline again.