MTX Fluid.... yet again.

[mholhut]

I just picked up a 90 SHO with 188K on the clock. The 5 speed is difficult to get in the 1 - 4 gears and the previous owner said that it was time for a fluid change. He was using Redline MTL.

I removed the fill plug and almost a quart of fluid poured out. I thought it was full when the fluid was level to the bottom of the fill hole, so I thought that was strange. The former owner installed a drain plug as listed on shotimes.com so it was simple to remove the remainder of the fluid.

So, I bought a hand pump and transferred a little over 3 quarts of Havoline type F fluid into the tranny. A test drive revealed that it was worse than the old fluid!

I did a search of the forum and the consensus seems to be GM synchromesh, which I will run out and pick up tomarrow. With that is two questions:

1. Should the presence of excess fluid during the drain cause any concern?

2. Will my shifting "notchyness" woes be over after replacing the fluid with the Synchromesh?

Thanks folks!

 

[shojuan]

The 90 should have been shifting fine with the MTL as long as it had the original brass blocking rings in there instead of the newer fiber lined blocking rings (which prefer Redline D4). The syncromesh may or may not be an improvment over the MTL. The tranny was overfilled by 1 quart. I think this can result in foaming of the fluid which can result in quite a bit more wear. You might have a mechanical problem in the tranny. Another thing too is that maybe the car needs a new clutch. I hope you got it for a song because that SHO might be needing a few dollars and some serious TLC.

 

[SHO_Driver]

Simple test: If you can get into reverse without grinding then your tranny might need some work. If it always grinds going into reverse, even after waiting in a forward gear first, then its more likely a clutch issue.