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Thread: Manual transmissions die too (or are killed)

  1. #41
    Senior Member AtomicPunk's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
    With ambient temperatures hitting the freezing mark lately, the synchros in Mirage #3 are REALLY becoming irritating. This trans is in the worst condition of any I've ever owned in about 35 crapbox manual cars.

    After a cold start, 2nd gear is very difficult to get, even with double-clutching. 1st and 3rd are occasionally slightly problematic too.

    I've tried triple & quadruple shifting, but by the time I've successfully shifted, the car is going too slow to use 2nd gear any more!

    Because it's so temperature sensitive, I'm wishing I could get Redline Manual Trans Lube (MTL) here in Canada, but it's just not available. Need thinner oil. And a transmission heater.

    That'll teach me for buying a car someone learned to (tried to) drive stick on!


    I just did my manual service change to Red line, didn't make much difference, unfortunately. The 1-2 synchro is clearly my issue. It remains hard to shift into 2nd when cold, but when the transaxle warms up it works. Going to keep driving it til it breaks or I sell it. In a summer month, of course.



  2. #42
    It did occur to me that they sold me this car in July, despite not driving it since the winter.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


  3. #43
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    Its a f***ing shame and so unnecessary. Some are so stupid, they ruin manual gearboxes because of straw in their head instead of brains!

    In these parts, some driving schools teach those that don't learn changing gears properly by this method: With the knob of the shift-lever removed, a pencil with an eraser on top is taped to the lever as a maybe 10cm/4inch extension. The shifting is then done using just the eraser of the pencil. That way they learn to shift without force.

  4. #44

    Frankenlubricant!

    I'm going with foama's suggestion: it's mix & match time!

    I bought 1 QT of Royal Purple 100% synthetic Synchromax manual transmission lube. It's recommended for manual cars that use ATF.

    And I bought 1 QT of Redline "MT-85" (Redline says it's 75w85). That was the lightest non-ATF gear oil available at my local parts store. (Mitsubishi calls for 75w80 for our cars.)

    Between the two of them, I'll end up with something less than 75w85.

    ---

    Just for fun, I'm going to do a simple pour test to compare how quickly a measured amount of each oil drains from a container with a small hole in it. I'm also going to also test what's in the transmission now.

    The transmission oil is draining as I type this.

    The oil that's in there was pretty thick; hardly any ran out when I removed the drain bolt (ambient temp around 5C / 41F). For a moment I wondered if the transmission was empty! I had to remove the fill bolt to get it to drain properly.

    ---

    I have already referred to the following very helpful thread for locating the drain/fill plugs and other helpful tips:

    Thread: HOW TO: Changing 5MT Gear Oil (Manual Transmission)

    ---

    Will post results later. I should probably start a new thread.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


  5. The Following User Says Thank You to MetroMPG For This Useful Post:

    inuvik (11-22-2021)

  6. #45
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    @Metro
    You said it hardly ran out when drained at 5°C 41F. Thats not normal at all.
    If what came out is thicker than the 75W85 you already have, you can rejoice and party, because the synchro rings would probably be OK! Cross your fingers, maybe it just had the wrong stuff in it?

  7. #46
    I think that may be a possibility.

    The oil that was in it poured significantly slower than the synthetic 75w85 when I did a pour
    test.

    Or... it's possible that the old oil wan't synthetic, making it much thicker at lower temps. That could explain why there's such a dramatic difference in shifting between warm & cold weather.

    I went with 1 qt 75w85 and .7 qt "Synchromax" (which is very thin by comparison) and it's as if the car has a different transmission. Significantly less resistance going into gear. No trouble shifting now.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


  8. #47
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    Great news!
    If it were mine, I would try to get some 75W80 GL4 and change it in spring.

    Edit:

    @MetroMPG:

    So it had the wrong stuff in it, problem solved. Just think of the poor former owner who relied on the idiot in the Mitsu workshop to do the right thing, probably sold the car because of a supposedly busted transmission and lost a lot of money!

    Reminds me of something similar that may be of use to you and the ecomodder scene:
    The FSM and the owners manuals for the original Suzuki-made Swifts stated 75W90 GL3/GL4, but the OEM filling was different! Probably was 75W85 mineral-based GL3/4.
    If the brew was changed to fully synthetic (higher VI) 75W85 GL4 these cars shifted better, had less gearbox whine, and had better mpg values. Might be worth checking...
    Last edited by foama; 11-23-2021 at 05:51 AM.

  9. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by foama View Post
    The FSM and the owners manuals for the original Suzuki-made Swifts stated 75W90 GL3/GL4, but the OEM filling was different!
    I think I might have been the person who discovered that.

    At one point, I owned two of the same car at the same time. One was my 1998 Firefly that I bought with 2000 original km on it, which still had the original factory gearbox oil. The other car, also a 1998 Firefly, had ~160,000 km and was more difficult to shift and prone to grinding second gear when not double-clutching.

    I drained the trans oil from both cars and did a timed "pour test" to compare the viscosity (just like I did with the Mirage yesterday) . It was obvious the low-km original car had much thinner gear oil. The high-km car probably had its gear oil changed following FSM/owner's manual specs. I put GM synchromesh in it and had a similar result to my Mirage yesterday -- shifting problems went away.

    EDIT: I posted a dedicated thread about the Mirage gearbox "fix", comparing the viscosity of several oils:

    Thread: Gearbox had the wrong oil in it? 5MT shifting problems fixed with thinner oil.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


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    foama (11-23-2021)

  11. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
    I think I might have been the person who discovered that.

    I remember a thread in TeamSwift around 2004...

    Anyway, nowadays we have some excellent PAO and Ester based fully synthetic oils with fantastic Viscosity Indexes (VI) we didn't dare dreaming of back in those days.



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