Socal_Tom

Drained the oil from the '84 5 speed yesterday and found the following. The oil itself looked very clean, the drain plugs not so much.

Mrmerlin

does it have a LSD

Socal_Tom

Hi Stan, no, it is not.

GlenL

How long since the last fluid change? Chunks or just filings?

Socal_Tom

Thanks for the responses.

Don’t know how long, has been in the road in my ownership. Car has around 100k miles on it.

Material was flakes, mostly mushy rather than rocky (if that makes sense).

dr bob

Tom --

Were it mine...

I'd have the differential cover off for inspection before putting oil back in it. A little powder is usually not too worrisome, while your chunks and flakes would have my full attention.

Flip side.... Decide now what you will do once the cover is off. If there are pieces of ring gear missing, will you do a full setup with new pieces? Realistically, any mildly serious damage in the diff means new pinion and carrier bearings and setup again. Ready to do that, or would you scoop out the debris and spray/flush everything, refill with fresh oil and drive until the noise is unbearable? While you scrounge the pieces parts and capital and do the work at a more convenient time. I'm pretty sure you can easily sink a few $k in gearbox and differential parts and pieces. Once you have it all apart (needed to get the differential set up right) the worn transmission pieces will be really hard to put back in. It's a slippery slope.

Mrmerlin

I would also suggest that Greg Brown be considered for a trans rebuild, he is the best!

GlenL

This reminds me of analyzing problems by textual descriptions of sounds.

If it's just "mushy," I'd clean it up and put it back. Looks like old lube and a some about of synchro ring particles.

Red Flash

Those pictures remind me of a story.

My second car was a 1980 SAAB Turbo. I remember changing the transaxle oil and getting not clumps but quite shiny specs remaining in the oil. Having changed transmission oils before, I asked my dad, "Is this ok." He said, "Of course, it's normal..."

Sure enough, the transmission started clunking while in San Francisco. A short drain there revealed metal bits like above... I drove out of San Fran in the night to get through the S. Nevada mountains without traffic. Something like 74 shifts in 36 hours from San Francisco to Springfield, IL.

My dad just didn't want me to waste money "fixing" the transmission in a kind of beat up car. Well, that turned out to be my first motor pull and transmission replacement... :-)