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I run an endurance e30. While changing fluids between races we found the trans fluid grey/silver marbled looking with an unusually high amount of small metal particles on the magnet.
Obviously this doesn’t sound good. I’m assuming its fatal but wanted to double check. We used Red Line MTL so I was expecting something red to come out. Any thoughts? It is a Gertrag 240.
Jason
Since no one else has ventured an opinion…
Gray/silver marbling was water contamination?
Replacing a tranny at the track with some buddies isn’t too hard, so I’m on the fence. If you don’t mind that kind of thing and you’re a cheapskate, drive it until it dies. For all we know it might have plenty of life left in it. Alternately, if you hate working on cars at the track, replace it in your garage as a preventative measure.
No water. If so I don’t know where it would come from. Ideas of water source?
Next race is 24 hrs so I think we’ll replace it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being stupid and someone would say “oh yeah, that happens when the ______ starts leaking, just replace the fluid and you’re good”.
That would suck. Anyways, off to find a 240. Anyone have one?
Jason
It takes surprisingly little water to contaminate the oil load. A cup of water will spoil the 5qts in an engine. Maybe a couple tablespoons of water will spoil the load in a tranny.
Only way I can think of for water to get inside is for aggressive pressure washing and the tranny vent up top.
We don’t know it was water, that was only a guess based on your description of a “marbled” appearance. That marbling means a fluid that is insoluble in tranny fluid and therefore prob not petroleum based… Transmissions get pretty hot so you’d think a little water would find it’s own way out the vent as vapor.
I don’t mean to suggest that the oil quality problem clearly resulted in the metal filings on the cap. Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. It’s certainly possible to have 2 unrelated problems.
I ran a season with Redline MTL. When I changed it was metallic grey with lots of metal shavings on the magnet just as you describe. I switched to Torco RTF, and the trans lasted another two season. YMMV.
do you know the history of that transmission? when we do our rebuild we use assembly lube which makes the first fluid change look almost like your describing. FYI, these Getrags all have brass synchros and aluminum shift forks, steel gears. depending on what the deposits look like you should have an idea what is going on. Could be shift fork wear.
My fluid looks like that when I change it…have not noticed much metal on the plug though.
Al
