From: James Shanks (n1vbn@bit-net.com)
Date: Fri Feb 20 2004 - 09:51:13 PST
A slightly dirtier way to find out whether you have oil or ATF fluid in
your tranny is in my mind killing more than one bird with one stone. Crawl
under the truck with two drain containers, one for oil and one for
antifreeze. You will see two drain plugs under the tranny, one says oil the
other one says water or coolant or something like that. I am going from a
previous post from a weak memory.
Loosen each plug one at a time and slowly open until oil or fluid
seeps out, other advantage of doing this is if you get water/antifreeze
coming out of the oil side you know the transmission oil cooler is cracked
and leaking. This means you have to fix the leak by replacing the oil
cooler or the tranny will definitely go the way of the dinosaur.
Another tip, these trannys are very robust IF DRIVEN
PROPERLY!! This means you must warm them up properly before you
drive them in high range. There are other M-211/M-135 owners out here and
correct me if wrong but it was strongly suggested you warm up the engine to
at least 160 degrees F. before driving....then drive in low range until you
hit 180 on the gauge for at least 1 mile. If you try to drive these
trucks with cold oil in the tranny in high range you will do damage.
Originally they used the same motor oil in the tranny as the engine 30
weight NON-DETERGENT IF YOU HAVE MOTOR OIL IN YOUR TRANNY DO NOT USE
REGULAR 10 OR 30 WEIGHT MOTOR OIL AS IT IS HIGH DETERGENT and will loosen
all sorts of crap from within which will plug up all sorts of little
important places.
The US Army discovered these trucks (M-135/M-211) wouldn't move
and would burn out the trannys in the winter on Korea, the fix was to
change oil to 10 weight which allows the truck to move in low range only
without damage until it warms up the oil in the tranny enough to flow
freely in high range. If your tranny needs to be rebuilt Memphis Equipment
in Memphis, Tenn. has all the parts and has been rebuilding these trannys
for the Army and private owners for years, not very expensive either. They
also have and use surplus test stands so they hook up the rebuilt tranny
and load test it for one hour far worse than you will ever treat it, then
they crate it up and ship it to you or reinstall it if you brought your
truck in. If you rebuild you have the choice of motor oil or ATF fluid,
they use a different clutch pack for ATF or oil and it is critical to use
the correct oil or fluid.
If you follow the proper warm up procedures you will have many
years of good service from the 302-M transmission.
I hope this helps and apologize for typing so long, I will now
rest my two fingers.
If you want to really cry wait till you see this truck that one of
our brothers up North refurbished an M-135 ( six single wheels.......10
wheels is the M-211 model). The website below in addition to making you
want to die when you see this truck also has a ton of very good information
for a newbie like yourself.
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/deuce/index.html
Here is the link for Memphis Equipment
http://www.memphisequipment.com/
James Shanks
n1vbn@arrl.net
1998 IMZ 8.103
1984 HD FLHT-C
At 08:09 AM 2/20/2004, MVTrucker@aol.com wrote:
>RAM is correct, to a point, that the trans uses motor
>oil (probably non-detergent). That's what you would use
>if it's not a rebuilt transmission. Look hard for a
>rebuild tag because if it's a rebuild (probably Memphis
>Equipment rebuilt), the clutch plates are upgraded and
>you must use ATF. Pull the dipstick and see if the fluid
>is red or more like motor oil. Use the wrong stuff and
>the trans gives it up. One of our chapter members did it.
>Joe Young
>
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