Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Rohan, thanks for your post, you made me realise I had ordered the wrong oil for my gearbox, I managed to reorder the correct MTL in time (I have edited my post above).

Since changing the oil, the shift does seem to be smoother, hard to give an accurate, objective analysis as the clutch is brand new so grabbing quite a bit and I don't know what MTL was in before.

For those who don't see the benefits of the slightly more expensive Red Line stuff, I don't see the benefits of not using it. Compared to the cost of fuel, which is three or four times the extra outlay for the MTL for every tankful, and considering it will be protecting the gearbox for tens of thousands of miles, it's a no brainer. It might be an old Anglia 'box but that's not to say it doesn't deserve the best protection available, if that can be had for a few extra quid. After all, some really ugly old birds where Chanel No. 5 don't they? It might not bag them a new husband but they still feel better for doing it.

Thread reawakening post!!

As I seem to ironing out the bugs in my clutch set up I?m now looking to learn how to change gears in my dog box - clutchless up changes are going well (as an aside I can admit to doing the same in my Landcruiser !!!).

A clutch that is behaving itself has got me successfully changing down through the box from 3rd gear at the local Hillclimb track (and I?m sure I?ll improve with more practice too).

I am also looking for ?external" leg ups too. A couple of things I?ve thought of are :-

I suspect my dog rings could be more than a little bit tired ( I may check em on Sunday after another day on the hill on Saturday).

I?m running a Premium Penrite 80W-90 Gear Oil right now - I also have on hand Penrite?s Fully Synthetic ?Sin 75? (75W-90) that I could try on Saturday.

A couple of minutes running the gear box on the jack as I?m warming the motor wouldn?t hurt either

all the modern synthetic gear oils will be better for your box then mineral oils. With a dog box its more technique than the oil though for a clean change

cheers
Rohan

Interesting thread , I recently posted a problem with difficult gear changing on a rebuilt 4 speed box. Well I have now done 60 miles on the rebuilt box and whilst I could live with the difficult change have decided to give the Redline MTL a try. So here it is arriving by post today.


One quart should just be enough for the 4 speed box which will have a little mineral oil residue in it.

Plan is to try it Saturday as long as it's not snowing here.

Report to follow

Steve

My gearbox was rebuilt 30 years ago and fitted to the car but has never been driven since then. It will soon be back on the road. I?m thinking of draining out the existing oil - no idea what it is - and filling it with Redline MTL. I note that the Redline MTL oil is synthetic, will it mix with the existing mineral oil ok or do I need to flush out the existing oil, I gather that getting the oil out of the tail housing in situ is virtually impossible due to the design of the gearbox internals, so it will definitely be a mixture of the two oils in there.

Bigbaldybloke wrote:My gearbox was rebuilt 30 years ago and fitted to the car but has never been driven since then. It will soon be back on the road. I?m thinking of draining out the existing oil - no idea what it is - and filling it with Redline MTL. I note that the Redline MTL oil is synthetic, will it mix with the existing mineral oil ok or do I need to flush out the existing oil, I gather that getting the oil out of the tail housing in situ is virtually impossible due to the design of the gearbox internals, so it will definitely be a mixture of the two oils in there.

Redline synthetic MTL is compatible with conventional Dino oil. No issues at all in either direction.

- Dan

Thanks Dan