I have to pull my DS to fix a sloppy u-joint, so I drained all the ATF that I put in initially and there are very, very fine metal particles in the ATF. Its not like silver spray paint or anything, but stirring the fluid, I can see the fine particles swirling around. Enough to give it a fine metallic look. Is this normal for an initial break in, or am I screwed and stuck with another dud trans? It runs and shifts well, but seeing metal makes me uneasy.

 

Anyone have experience with this, or at least inspected their fluid after the initial break-in?

 

Manual transmissions generally shed metal off the gear teeth, and off the synchrnizers when shifting. I don't know how much would be considered "normal" for that particular model, but it's usually worst when brand-new with any model or when driven hard (fast shifting).

If there's nothing else wrong with it (no noises, no crashing gears, etc.), then it's probably OK.

Change the fluid, and check again later. Maybe see if you can find a drain plug that's a REAL STRONG magnet, to attract and hold any chips.

 

It went a couple hundered miles with no fast shifting and just general driving. The most abuse its seen is over the weekend, when I finalized most of the tune. That consisted of 0-5000 RPMs in one gear w/o, any power shifting. I hope its ok. I really dont want to pull it back out again.

 

Well, I think I found the cause. Since there where some vibrations from the .030" or so of slop in the made in china neapco joint, I took a very close look at the bushing in the tail housing and sure enough, the outermost portion had a polished wear band all around. The other 95% of it looked ok. The out of balance driveshaft was probably causing the yoke to get cocked in the bushing, causing the odd wear pattern. All thats present is a narrow band of very faint wear on the yoke, so hopefully only the outermost portion of the bushing is tapered. The inside looks ok. This would probably also account for the extremly fine silver, non-ferrous metal in the ATF, no?

 

IIRC I had a little on my first fluid change.

Whick TKO do you have? I have one of the first edition TKO's (as opposed to the newer 500/600s). I have always run GM Syncromesh in mine per the recommendation. Did they change?

-Schultzy

 

TKO 500. I put ATF in for the first few hundred miles. I have some syncromesh on the way. I think the problem was due to the out of balance driveshaft. There is a band of wear around the rear of the bushing that the slip yoke rides on. I remember having a similar issue before with this driveshaft, but not thinking much of it. With the poly trans mount. There is a vibration that starts getting bad around 50 MPH. My guess is that the out of balance shaft was pulling the yoke to the side and forcing it into the bushing. The fact that there was around .020" of play in the u-joint probably also didnt help. Hopefully another driveshaft fixes the problem.