Amsoil

[_RaT_]

Mr Chalkley, I'm glad you took my post with the humour with which it was given. I most always make light of subjects, never wanting to make anybody feel bad about their purchase. My Fix Or Repair Daily suits me fine, even if I'm F'd On Race Day. Its old with a very anemic 7.3l naturally aspirated diesel. Talk about a dog. I can however break the wheels loose in gravel (one only actually). I too like the Cummins alot. In the construction projects I've been involved in, the 5.9L Cummins is used exclusively as the back up generator, and in fire sprinkler booster pumps. I asked the Cummins guy about that and he said they come in such a small package for so much power. I think reliability plays a part in that. Maybe a Cummins is in my future, but first I gotta build a house, buy a new tractor, oh man the list goes on.... Rat...
Oh yeah "how bout that Amsoil" (just to keep the off topic police happy)

 

[Bird]

Mark, your comment about not wanting to have a Ford diesel brought back old memories. When I was a teenager (16), I wanted one of those flat head Fords like some of my friends had, but Dad wouldn't let me have one; I had a Chevy. Then when I was 18 (and Dad owned a service station and auto parts house), I got a 2 year old Mercury convertible, and one day when Dad said something derogatory about it, I said, "You just don't like Fords, do you?" And he replied, "Oh no, I love'em, they keep me in business; I just don't want to own one!"

Bird

 

[MChalkley]

Sir King Rat - The "old anemic" Navistars may be slow, but they're generally pretty reliable.

I don't think you can go wrong with the Cummins. Their smaller displacement makes them more economical, yet their robustness allows them to take enough fuel and turbo boost to chuck out close to 1,000 ft-lbs of torque for longer than most engines their size will put out 400.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Amsoil is great! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Mark

 

[MChalkley]

Bird, you don't still have that Mercury convertible, do you?

Mark

 

[gordon]

Mark you still gots yous wisdom teetheees too? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Gordon

 

[Bird]

No, but I wish . . .a '56 Mercury Montclair black and white convertible./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[MChalkley]

Shucks, Gordon, mine haven't even shown themselves yet! (Actually the dentist says they're late and thinks they should be cut out. I told him that since there was a good chance he might end up with a very personal form of cancer later in life, maybe he should consider getting that part of his anatomy removed, too. I think he clearly grasped my position.) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Mark

 

[MChalkley]

My, my - that was a beautiful machine. Pity... /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

Mark

 

[Billc]

Mark and anyone else in the know, a question on Dodge transmissions. And my apologies to the board for being way off topic. I was going to start a new thread on this subject but didn't have the heart.

Anyway, this past Friday I was pulling my tractor home from a job (tractor and trailer weigh 12,240 lbs) when I started hearing a noise that wasn't suppose to be there. The noise was enough that I cancelled a weekend trip to Tennessee pulling the 5th wheel.

The best way to descripe the noise is thus: Between 35 and 40 mph (automatic transmission on a '98 4x4 3500 with 82,000 miles) I could hear a griding noise. A similar sound would be made if one were hand spinning a stone grinding wheel at medium r.p.m. and lightly putting a large metal spoon against the grind wheel. This noise only happened in 3rd gear. It happened whether the od was on or off. I could only hear it when I was pulling, no grinding sound when load was removed. As soon as I went above 41 to 43 mph the noise went away and all sounded normal.

I went to the Dodge dealership first thing Monday morning. We drained the transmission fluid (it looked and smelled normal), dropped the pan and changed the filter. The fluid was clean. The magnet was clean, no metal fragments at all. In fact, the mechanic said it was one the the cleanest transmissions he had seen. He did not want to drop the transmission. Said if something was wrong the only thing to do was to wait for it to fail.

I told him I was about to tweak the truck and go to straight synthetics. I said not a problem but said it was best to stay with regular transmission fluid, not go to the Amsoil. He said the recommended fluid was ATF+2 Type 7176. He said anything else could mess up the eletronics in the transmission.

O.k., the questions:

1) Any idea what the grinding sound was? The mechanic at first thought maybe my o.d. gear was shot. He said that even though the o.d. was off it always spins. But when he didn't see any metal framents he didn't know what the problem was.

2) Is he wrong about the Amsoil in the transmission?

Today I plan on pulling a load again with the truck to see if the sound is still there. If the sound is still there I'll go by serveral transmission shops and ask them their opinion.

Oh, do you think Paul will let me borrow his Surburban?

 

[MChalkley]

Billc - I would be surprised if it isn't a transmission problem, but I'm definitely no expert on automatics. I've never owned one, other than my wife's cars.

As for the Amsoil, he's in over his head, in my opinion. Folks always can be expected to nix ideas they don't understand. Give Amsoil a call and ask them though, if they say it's ok, they stand behind their product and warranty it's use in that application. I'd tell the engineer you talk to what the dealer says. They like to keep things like that in their "dumb dealers" scrapbook, I think. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

FWIW, there are quite a few folks on the TurboDiesel forum who've put synthetic in their autos. A good friend of mine did, but he's got the older model, and the electronics aren't the same, so that may not be relevant. His transmission temps went down over 40 degrees when pulling 20k loads, though. That's gotta help something.

Mark