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I read about this on a Honda forum via a Subaru forum. Someone named Scotty came up with a concoction of gear lubes for worn out manual transmissions that are notchy/worn out. It's called Uncle Scotty's Cocktail:
That's the mix for an Impreza and would have to be adjusted for your vehicle. It sounds interesting and I have a friend with an old Ranger I might see if he will try it and see what happens.
i would be very careful in suggesting someone use that concoction. some manual transmissions use automatic transmission fluid rather than gear oil, the world class T5 for instance, and using gear oil in those transmissions will end in a burnt up trans.
People seem to have good luck blending Redline into other cheaper lubes - but you do need to keep in mind that each lube is an engineered product, with a specific additive package, and while there is a certain amount of mixability the different products are not specifically formulated to work together.
Offhand I would think a load of regular Redline MTL or the 75-90 GL-4 they make would work better than any sort of homebrew.
The Redline shockproof products are intended for racing, the additive pack in them is not good for a lot of miles (lot of miles is up to you to define, although you could ask their tech expert on the website - shockproof is mostly for drag racing...)
All that said, if your trans is on it's last legs, and you will need to replace or rebuild soon anyway, not much to lose trying such a "cocktail". - although if you are going to rebuild it, what it probably really needs is new bearings and maybe synchros, if the bearings are failing due to brinnelling, game over and no sort of magic lube is going to help. Keep running with bad bearings and you may damage the gears themselves, while if you replace the bearings as soon as it starts to pop out of gear or otherwise indicate "it's time" generally the gears are fine.
I was doing more reading about this and the cocktail is supposed to be used as a "last resort" before a rebuild or tranny replacement. Would I try it in my car? Well, I only have 2,800 miles on it, so not yet.
The Subaru WRX guys run this stuff as their transmissions are such crap and fail pretty readily with aggressive use or if the car is modified. The original blend was specifically made to help eek out a little more use from a WRX transmission. The guy who developed it is a major Subaru head and knew what he was doing for THAT car/trans. If I had a WRX with a failing trans, I'd run it as many people have and reported good results, but these were people replacing the ENTIRE trans for an upgraded unit when their original one finally went. If you head over to the NASIOC forum, there is a 90+ page thread dedicated to it.
if it were me, the cocktail i would use it a good synthetic 75w90 gear oil and a can of either STP or lucas oil treatment. i have used both in dying manual transmissions to good effect.
The Subaru WRX guys run this stuff as their transmissions are such crap and fail pretty readily with aggressive use or if the car is modified. The original blend was specifically made to help eek out a little more use from a WRX transmission. The guy who developed it is a major Subaru head and knew what he was doing for THAT car/trans. If I had a WRX with a failing trans, I'd run it as many people have and reported good results, but these were people replacing the ENTIRE trans for an upgraded unit when their original one finally went. If you head over to the NASIOC forum, there is a 90+ page thread dedicated to it.
actually....this is VERY false...one of the wives tales of the whole thing, I'm afraid
i had an 02 wrx that never shifted quite right and i tried many different lubes in it....there was NOTHING mechanically wrong with the transmission
the fact that the ring and pinion share the same bath as the trans gears and synchros makes getting the lube right quite difficult and most of the synthetic lubes are too slippery for the synchros and cause grunching and grinding
I had a couple ideas from researching on the 'net and mixed the v1 cocktail up and it was SO MUCH better...quite shocking, really
oh....and that car was 300whp for 70k miles and driven quite hard....the original transmission and clutch were in it when it was traded in for an 06 wrx which i put the v2 cocktail in at 10k miles...and which now has 92k hard driven miles and going strong
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