trans fluid dirty / metal shavings ?, how much is normal ? Options

[Culpable04]

I drained my transmission today and found this






as you may be able to see, there are some brownish / bronze shavings floating around, not big enough to be felt by hand, and are not attracted to a magnet.

how concern should I be ?

trans drives fine, there is a little play from standing to get going, this is known as preload on drag racing and I've read that some play is normal, again not sure how much is normal.

I daily drive the car 90 miles a day, no issues.

it used to pop out of 4th gear and used to grind a litttle on 3rd gear, but I adjusted the clutch engagement point and pedal high and it all went away.

let me hear your input.

[lagos]

rust.

[Euphoria]

Do a fresh fluid change now and do one not long after and it should be fine.

[azn87]

what kind of oil do u use??

[Smaay]

rust.

its not rust


that is normal for transmissions, you have all that gear mesh going at high speeds. use regular 80/90 gear oil. i dont see a point in spending crazy money for synthetic oil.

[Johnnyny]

mmm looks tasty

[Culpable04]

I had pennsoil synchromesh,

now I filled it up with mobil 1 75W 90, I had great results with this before so went back to it.

later today I'll report how the trans feels, I just finish refilling it

[Bitter]

normal powdered metal, lil brass from the synchro's and a lil steel from the gears. how long was that oil in there for?

send it off to blackstone labs and they can give you a good idea of how its doing inside.

This post has been edited by Bitter: May 7, 2011 - 10:30 AM

[Culpable04]

it's been in there for around 10K miles ( since Sept last year I think )

before that, the trans was sitting at an engine / trans importer


I'm at work, drove the car here and feels normal, a little smoother, but no big difference on the driving, so I guess I'm in the clear for now.

I also measure the fluid drained to make sure I wasn't running low and I got exactly 4.2 qts out of it, so it's not leaking fluid in any way, which is a good thing.