1st 6spd fluid change- how much metal is too much?

Changed my transmission fluid earlier this afternoon.

I am at about 24.5k miles so far on the factory fluid. Started getting a little notchy going into 3rd last week, so I decided to change it around 25k with my oil and filter, rather than wait till 30k.

When I drained my drain pan, I suddenly felt like I had been panning for gold, and not in a good way. Pic related, had a not insignificant amount of brass and aluminum shavings in the gear oil at the bottom of the pan.

I ran a magnet through the smidge of fluid left, got a tiny amount of fuzz on it, nothing concerning as far as steel, but quite a bit of large 1/16" or so across flakes of brass and aluminum.



I do want to say, I had also just changed my front diff fluid, but I had cleaned the pan out entirely with brakleen and wiped it dry with a clean shop rag. Everything in the pan came solely from the transmission.

 

Makes me want to go out and do my mtf this weekend, on other cars I have not ever noticed metal like this.

 

Same. I was expecting a little bit of small shavings, but these seem excessive in both quantity and size.

The donor 4runner I swapped the ma ual from into my old vehicle had 170kish on it, and the owner had never changed the fluid :/ and it didn't spew chunks like this.

 

Thank you for posting this thread, now I have something to look forward to and something to pay close attention to.

 

You are certain you have been running OEM gear oil? I ask because OEM and whatever is used to replace it must be GL4 formulation gear oil. There are a lot of GL5 gear oils around that are NOT appropriate for our MT. GL5 can cause a breakdown of the synchros in the gear box because they are made of brass. GL4 is safe. Seeing all those brass chunks makes me concerned that the synchros are breaking down.

 

Picked up those oem fluid, how do you guys open them, with a regular can opener? They are not in normal gear fluid packaging.

 

This is the fluid that came in the truck from the factory. 1st time changing it.

 

Smart move doing it early, I’m going to do mine too. The transmission is a pretty heavy duty, it should be fine. Especially if the larger particles stayed in the pan vs circulating.

 

I replaced it with royal purple 75w90, back of the bottle said gl5, but claimed safe for brass/bronze synchros. It was more a matter of expediency. I should have ordered some redline to have on standby

 

I just used an old school can opener. Punched one hole, then wiggled the blade end left and right a bit to widen the hole enough for the tube for my pump to fit in nicely. Didn't bother with a vent hole, there was enough of a gap around the pump suctjon tube left.

 

does the transmission still work ok? just drive it

 

Yes, only put about 20 miles on it, but shifting without any hesitation now.

 

great idea, thanks!

 

When I did the first drain and fill on my rear dif, I had leftover machining bits and chunks as well. For the rear dif, it's "normal" for the first change.

Trans? No clue.

 

This was the only chunk that came out of my rear diff. Front diff had a similar amount of metallic/magnetic "fuzz" on the drain plug, but no shavings or chunks of material.


This was around 10k miles iirc.