lsd gearbox oil

[COLIN STUBBS]

does anyone know what grade of oil to run in a plate type lsd honda civic box? im just putting one in my rover and cant make sense of the japanese on the manufacturers website. GL 5 seems to crop up quite a bit.....

[graham bahr]

i would ring castrol and see what they say, armed with that info you should be able to cross reference any manufacturers oil.

[greenamex2]

Have a word with Mardis Gras, they'll probably be able to supply the oil as well.

[marcush.]

those boxes Need the original spec oil ,or they won´t shift (sync) when hot.
Don´t even consider GL5!

[ian_w]

'API GL5' is a quality standard and all but the very cheapest meet it. The more important thing to consider is the viscosity. In the good old days, gear oil was either EP80 or EP90. Nowadays, modern cars run a multigrade gear oil like 75W90 - if you use a thick oil in these boxes then shifting is very difficult or impossible when cold.

What type of LSD is it, plate type or quaife/torsen type? A plate diff doesn't need anything special - I run Mobil-1 SHC in my Hewland with LSD ( and McLaren run it in their F1 cars ). The quaife/torsen type rely on friction between gears to generate the lsd effect and may be more fussy on oil type - check with the manufacturer of the diff unit.

[R59]

I used Castrol B373 with a LSD additive at first, and then changed to a F86B spec gear-oil. The spec of F86B far exceeded that laid down by the LSD (ZF) and Transmission people (Quaife).

B373 was costing me about £30 for 5 litres, the additive was about £10 a pot.

F86B gear oil was about £1 (inc VAT) a litre (in a 205L drum).

As recommended by Deutz-Fahr for use in their transmissions with inboard wet (oil immersed) brakes, and many other agricultural/plant manufacturers.

If it can take that sort of pounding, a puny car transmission is nothing!

And it actually improved gear shifts, and in 10 years of racing, plus a few thousand road miles with it, I only had to replace 2 synchro rings, and one set of diff plates.
Not bad, also, considering the transmission is actually being fed with almost twice as many horsepower as the standard engine.

Rob.

[graham bahr]

castrol B373 is mineral based and we used to use it in BMW lsd's not sure about using it in a gearbox though,

same applies to castrol SAF XJS which is great for bmw and subaru diffs

[graham bahr]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

castrol B373 is mineral based and we used to use it in BMW lsd's not sure about using it in a gearbox though,

.

same applies to castrol SAF XJS which is great for bmw and subaru diffs and doesn't need additives to work in lsd's infact we also used to run it in non lsd cars as it saved stocking the normal SAF XJ, its only availiable from castrol in 25 litre drums which cost about £250!, from time to time we used to get customers come in and buy some "loose" so to speak, after they had phoned castrol to find a stockest and they would point them in the direction of the nearest trade purchaser

[COLIN STUBBS]

thanks everybody. iv had aring round and sorted a drum of equivelent to robs f86b,actually a bp oil. im a massey ferguson tractor dealer. never thought we might have something like it on the shelf! its got a right arrid pong to it....
the box has come from japan off good old ebay and is a spoon plate type diff which looks all good. its going in tomorrrow.thanks again. col

[R59]

I wasn't aware that a spoon diff fitted a 135?

[COLIN STUBBS]

ah. well now 59 that prooves you dont know it all!!!!! its amazing how many times harry fergusons been to my rescue! thanks for the advice mate. got the bugger in yesterday and have a pair of nice equal length black lines on the road outside my house...

[greenamex2]

Does that mean you are going to be even quicker in the wet?

[COLIN STUBBS]

gawd knows dennis. pleased the new box hasnt got a speedo gear in it. with the wheelspin i was getting at snett the old bugger was doing 130mph exiting coram!!