Gearbox Oils

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Ian_Fearn
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Gearbox Oils

Post by Ian_Fearn »

I guess this is directed to our gearbox and oil guru Mr AlanS...


Ok, its not for a Citroen, its for my Cavalier.

The gearchange is pretty lumpy as the car has done a fairly high mileage and i'm pretty sure the oil has either never been changed OR hasnt been changed for a long time.

I know quite a bit of info has been posted on various additives and procedures so could somebody give me a recap on what i should do?

Cheers, Ian
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Cornishbx16v
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Post by Cornishbx16v »

i had issues with the synchro's in my box when hot, but cured them by putting in ep80! nice and thick! bit stiff when cold but when ho sillky smooth! no grinding or crunching!
simple fix reallY!
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Ian_Fearn
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Post by Ian_Fearn »

Although i still have problems when warm its far worse when its cold.
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Mr B
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Post by Mr B »

How about Total BV?
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DavidRutherford
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Post by DavidRutherford »

the cavalier box is designed to use an oil called "castrol SMX". As far as I know it's only available from Vaux dealers, and a select few motor factors. It looks a lot like ATF, but has different temperature grades.

Use other oils at your peril. When I had my 2.0i Cav I spoke at length to a very helpful man at a Vaux dealer in southampton, who is a bit of an enthusiast. he had seen the effects of running Vaux boxes on other oils, and apparently it wasn't pretty.

SMX isn't expensive... and you need 2 litres. There's no recommended drain interval, but aparently 100k miles is a decent lifetime for it.
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AlanS
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Post by AlanS »

Mornin' all!!

Bit late this morning due to dramas with the Mi16 I've had in bits.

Oil for a Cavalier I can't even guess on as we don't even see them out here, so be guided by the maker.
I do know that with the BXs, almost everyone who has ever gone synthetic has had notchy change problems. I have heard several theories on this ranging from the "slip" factor on synths being too good for the tolerances of the older boxes to the type of metals used in the synchros on the boxes being different on the earlier boxes and so incompatable with the modern oil.
My formula I've found has been using Castrol VMX80 with 125mls of Nulon G70 gearbox additive. Run for about 5000 - 8000 klms, dump it out and replace with the same mix again.
It comes out a fairly gruesome colour but gearchanges are unbelieveably smooth through all gears up and down.
The Total BV that Dave recommends I understand works well and is a 75/80 oil.
All I can say with the Cav is to adhere strictly to the manufacturers recommendation as modern boxes seem very sensative to types and grades used having seen BXs get notchy even with an oil up to 90 used, and whilst I wouldn't touch engine additives with a barge pole, I usually always use them in the gearbox as in there they do actually seem to help and having used the G70 in all our cars for a few years, have never had an issue with it.


Alan S
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Ian_Fearn
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Post by Ian_Fearn »

Thanks Alan,

Have we ever had the debate about getting hold of Nulon G70 in this country?
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Geoffrey Gould
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Nulon

Post by Geoffrey Gould »

Hi Quite a few years ago now, sorry I cant remember how long,Motoman used to sell Nulon also I have a vauge memory of it being advertised in Car Mechanics or a magazine like it , it didn't last very long and seemed to disapear quickly off the shelves. Sorry I can't be more spacific, memory not too good nowadays.
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Post by AlanS »

Ian_Fearn wrote:Thanks Alan,

Have we ever had the debate about getting hold of Nulon G70 in this country?
Only response I got ages ago was that it was available over there, but by the same token, I think any of these gearbox additives all seem to do the one job.
I've always used Nulon because it's so easy to get here, is cheap and after comparisons with Redline and Slick50 seemed to come up as good if not better than the dearer brands.

This is their website. Perhaps drop them an e-mail and ask who distributes it in the UK???

http://www.nulon.com.au/


Alan S
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