Castrol VMX80W for gearbox?

[skelteanema]

Hi all,

I have seen numerous recommendations for gearbox and differential oils,

I was wondering whether Castrol VMX80W is suitable for the Elan 4 speed gearbox for a road use car that is not driven hard. It is a GL-4 rated oil.

Thanks

[2cams70]

VMX80 works great in the 4 speed. Noticeably improves the shift quality and economical too. You don’t need to waste your money on products where the main differentiator is marketing.

[skelteanema]

Thanks 2cams,

was gifted a 4L bottle. Thought it would be OK but wanted to check. This gives me confidence to change the oi with the VMX.

[rgh0]

VMX80W appears to be a relatively low cost mineral gear oil of the approximate right specification for the Ford 4 speed gear box. Personally i only use fully synthetic oils these days but for a gently used road car it will probably be Ok

cheers
Rohan

[2cams70]

Unlike a lot of people here I’ve actually personally used VMX80 in a lot of manual transmission cars where the manufacturer calls for a simple straight low EP gear oil. This is the oil that most closely matches the grade specification of the original oil the 4 speed Ford transmission was designed around. It works very well in a hard driven road car. I won’t lie and say I’ve used it in racing though - I’m not wealthy enough for that! Synthetic oils sometimes do not work well with elastomers used in some oil seals. You need to be aware of that.

Remember if a squeaky door hinge only needs a few drops of Singer machine oil to cure the noise it’s not really necessary to spend the money on a synthetic gear oil. Indeed the Singer machine oil may even have a few additives that make it superior to the synthetic gear oil for the hinge application

[skelteanema]

I changed the oil in the gearbox with the VMX80. A pig of a job. The old oil still looked good and there was a little over a litre recovered. I refilled to just flowing out the filler plug as recommended and it was about a litre more or less.

I wasn't expecting to notice much difference as I thought the gear change was good on the car. However, it is noticeably better than before, easier to change and smoother too. Exactly as 2cams suggested it would.