Stiff gear change 300tdi

Advice please!!

I've recently had the oil changed in my manual gear box and now I'm struggling to engage 1st and 2nd gear until the box is warm. I've been advised to change it to 10/40 engine oil, so today I've dropped the oil and replaced it with 10/40 and yes the gear change is much improved. Question is will this harm the box? The red stuff that came out seem'd to be off the same thickness.

98 300tdi with 91000 on the clock

who advised injun oil?

i've heard of putting 10w/40 engine oil in a gearbox but ONLY for topping up.

anyway James May is about to crash an airship on Top Gear now.

Mayday Mayday, bloody hell...........stooooooppppppp!

haybales said:

Advice please!!

I've recently had the oil changed in my manual gear box and now I'm struggling to engage 1st and 2nd gear until the box is warm. I've been advised to change it to 10/40 engine oil, so today I've dropped the oil and replaced it with 10/40 and yes the gear change is much improved. Question is will this harm the box? The red stuff that came out seem'd to be off the same thickness.

98 300tdi with 91000 on the clock

Click to expand...

maybe u shu av asked the question before u put engin oil in ya gearbox?

If it's an R380 box it should have MTF in it as standard, lots of people use ATF and get away with it but it's not right. If I recall correctly the MTF I filled my R380 with was 5w/30, so not that much thinner than engine oil, but engine oil doesn't have the same high pressure resistance as dedicated transmission fluid so it could result in damage eventually. You might be alright using engine oil as long as you change it more regularly, but I wouldn't take the risk personally. MTF is expensive but my box has already done 130k so I want to extend its life as much as possible!

haybales said:

Advice please!!

I've recently had the oil changed in my manual gear box and now I'm struggling to engage 1st and 2nd gear until the box is warm. I've been advised to change it to 10/40 engine oil, so today I've dropped the oil and replaced it with 10/40 and yes the gear change is much improved. Question is will this harm the box? The red stuff that came out seem'd to be off the same thickness.

98 300tdi with 91000 on the clock

Click to expand...

The advice to use engine oil in a gearbox is entirely wrong !!!!!

You should be using Dexron II or III, preferably the LR-recommended MTF94.

If you leave engine oil in your gearbox it will wreck it - make no mistake about it, it's bad for a gearbox.

Thanks for your advice looks like I'll be back under the old girl this weekend with a bottle of MTF. The only thing thats confusing me is that the gear change is so much better with the 10/40 oil in it, I think the red stuff that I drained out was ATF hopefully MTF oil will cure the problem.

i had a similar problem, i had nice gearchange then submerged the car in water.... now its slightly stiffer, so some fresh MTF it is then! unless theres something else to look out for when uve got a gearbox wet?