gearbox oil

[robbiechaps]

can anyone recomend what grade of oil to be used for the gearbox and what oil for the chaincase of my leader? handbook states//strait 20/and 20/30.i have not seen any around

[nevhunter]

Auto trans ATF (DB) should be fine. It was used in the Mercedes manual gearboxes. Nev

[robbiechaps]

thanks nev for that info.

[Roger James]

With regard to oil used in the Primary Chaincase - some owners I know use SAE20 oil, personally I use SAE30.
I did once try ATF as it was recommended by someone who restores Ariel motorcycles but I found ATF always seemed to find a way out past the gasket and more annoyingly past the points seal in a very fine mist that got onto the points causing a misfire requiring regular cleaning of the points, after draining and filling with SAE30 there were no leaks and the problem with the points oiling up also stopped and the clutch worked just the same. A fellow owner who tried ATF in his Arrow engine also suffered similar problems.

Roger

[nevhunter]

One problem is that most modern engine oils are NOT suitable for gearbox lubrication. This advice came from Borg Warner (Aust) abput 30years ago when many of their gearboxes previously recommended them as did many british motorcycles and cars .Where the clutch is wet and shares the oil there is another problem of clutch slippage with friction modifiers.
The (DB) refers to Daimler Benz and is a manual electric preselect box.
Another possibility that I have used for years is TOU Tractor Oil Universal which works well for tractor transmissions wet clutches and hydraulics. Some of them contain an additive that controls corrosion, when the vehicle is stored for long periods, which is helpful in some cases with our bikes.
There are also heavyweight Caterpillar gear auto oils with up to SAE 50 weight specs which should be retained better if leakage is a problem... The earlier boxes can use a gear oil and grease mix., but just straight grease may not get into bushes and cause failure due to channelling..Nev

[robbiechaps]

thanks once again, I think I will use sae30