Hi folks,
I bought this bus awhile ago and I’m still working on the complete preventive maintenance review and filter/fluid change. So far I’ve seen nothing that give me much concern.
This week it has been the rear end that has had my attention. After getting a big enough breaker bar I got the filler plug out and I removed to rear cover. There was no drain plug so this was the only way to change the fluid.
There was about ¾ gal of really black fluid in it. No idea if it was synthetic or natural oil, it was real black and flowed easily. The cover was coated with a thick layer of a sticky grease like substance. No sign any metal particles
but it did take quite a bit of work to clean that stuff off. After thinking about it for while, maybe it was a protective coating as a by-product of a synthetic oil. The reason I think that is I did not see any rust on the inside but after just a short while spots of surface rust appear on the inside clean metal. I quickly applied fresh oil to stop that.
I’ve cleaned and painted the outside surface and I’ve got a replacement gasket and some black gasket goop ready to replace the cover; and a few questions:
1) is there anything I should be checking while I have the cover off?
2) what is a good fluid to put back in and why is it good.
3) what are the trade-offs?
I’ve got some fresh but really old 90-140 gear lube but I see a lot of folks going with 85-90. any thoughts
I’ve included some images for your edification. I’ve heard pictures are always good
Thanks
Al