CoedNaked

I have a question - read part of a reply I got from AMSOIL today concerning Gear lubes (they gave me a great response actually - very impressed!).

To whom it may concern, I have a 1993 Toyota Pickup with the 3vze
3.0 V6 with 4.56 gears. While this truck isn't a racehorse, it is definately
a workhorse and somewhere down the line I anticipate doing some mild towing
with it (IE no more than say 2500 pounds - it is rated for more but I don't
want to push it or sacrifice safety or driveability - I like to be well
within my limits). My main concerns are keeping my diferentials and
transmission/transfer case gears protected. I am considering definately
looking at switching my differential fluids to your Severe gear 75w90 (only
the best for my truck!), but some correspondance on a Toyota discussion
forum I frequent leaves me with some questions on what to do with the
transfer case and (manual) transmission fluids as far as gear lube goes.
Some speculate that your gear lube might be too slippery for a manual
transmission and cause sloppy shifting. I'm assuming it'd be fine for the
transfer case though. Can you provide any insight or recommendations? Is the
Severe gear overkill or would it work out fine? Or should I just stick with
your regular synthetic gear lube? I am mainly doing it for better protection
properties when towing eventually, on top of reduction in friction resulting
in mor efficiency. Stock gear lube recommendation is 75w90. Regards, Scott

Dear Scott,

I appreciate your concerns about using the right fluid in your Toyota pickup
V-6. Seems like you want to take proper care of it.

Sometimes when people buy something new, like AMSOIL, they don't properly
research what is the proper fluid for their application. For example, AMSOIL
makes about 10 different Synthetic Gear Lubes. This is to have the exact
fluid for each application. I would suggest you follow this link:
http://www.amsoil.com/products/appli...aspx?zo=278060

When you get to this page and open the Online Application Guide just enter
the information about your vehicle into the form and when the page opens it
will give you the proper AMSOIL products for your vehicle. And if there is
no AMSOIL product, it will give the manufacturer's code for the proper
lubricant. This is printable for quick reference later. If you put the wrong
fluid in a transmission, even AMSOIL, things may not work as intended.
Usually when I talk to someone who thinks that AMSOIL is "too slippery" it
turns out they didn't realize that the fluid they selected wasn't the proper
match.

I took the liberty of looking up your application and noticed that there are
two different applications for your vehicle depending on which transmission
you may have. A GL-5 application is for heavy wear prevention and uses the
full extreme pressure additive. However, I noticed that there also is an
application for using the GL-4 Gear Lubes. Usually when they call for a GL-4
Gear Lube in a manual transmission they are worried about corrosion problems
occurring with the extreme pressure additive and the brass synchronizers in
the transmission. So you see, it's important to use the proper fluid.

Your transfer case could be one of three with three different fluid
requirements. Find out which transfer case you have and then select the
proper fluid for the best performance there too. Toyota had a reason for
requiring certain fluids for the different applications. It's always best to
be certain which fluid you use to get the best service out of your truck.

I hope I was able to answer you question properly for you. If you need
something else just reply to this e-mail or call 1-888-637-7327 toll free
and I will try and help you.


So I'm assuming I should run a GL-4 in my manual tranny & transfer case but I could stick with the GL-5 fluids for my diffs?

Tanto

Amsoil definitely has my vote after the response you got. The guy doesn't mention differential fluids in his reply, what info did you get about that?

CoedNaked

Well if you go to the page he linked to and type in your vehicles information, my vehicles info on that page lists a bunch of different fluids that are compatable with the front & rear diffs, all of which are GL-5 synthetic gear lubes that Amsoil makes.

But also consider, I think the responses is obvious - he addressed what the differences might be and reasons why you might go with one over the other for the manual tranny as that is a issue with shifting, corrossion, etc, (GL-5 versus GL-4) but I think by the fact he didn't address differentials, and the fact that they only list GL-5's on my vehicles fluid list suggests that it isn't an issue and to go with GL-5's.