I was horrified by what I found when I went to reseal the cover due to some seepage. Initially the oil drained black but didn't really have a smell to it. I filled the transmission up with diesel and sloshed it around to get as much crud as I could out. The final pour through was still dark but more on the brown side and not black like previous.

 

Also can anyone tell me what the little drain tray thing is for? I've never seen one in a manual transmission setup before. Only little cups to keep oil around a certain shaft or seal.

 

Please let me know if the links don't work, I'm trying to find a decent upload site for pics since the whole debacle with photobucket.

 

https://ibb.co/jRiLFn

https://ibb.co/dJRJ1S

https://ibb.co/kPfBMS

https://ibb.co/i5Y987

Also this is after a quick scrub and rinse with clean diesel. I scrubbed, wiped, and probed whatever I could get to to get all the crud out. I figured it's better than just leaving it there to contaminate the new oil.

 

https://ibb.co/gW1zan

https://ibb.co/b2c5Fn

The tray catches oil sling and directs it to a lubrication point. 

 

The crud is pretty typical of what we see in these. Not really detrimental but can be avoided with more frequent changes. It's relatively easy to split the case and clean it if you choose to do so. Change the rear input shaft bearing if you do - those fail all the time on the phase-1 trans. 

 

GD

The oil was at the low mark, maybe a little above it if it was completely level, on the dipstick and black. It didn't smell rancid or burnt like what I've read about when the viscous coupler leaks its fluid out. It barely had any smell at all actually. Barely any metal shavings on the magnet, just your normal dust type sludge. For almost 300k miles it seems to be in really good shape.

 

I should have all my parts tomorrow so I'll have it back up and running under it's own power in the next few days. It's good to know this is somewhat to be expected when opening one of these up. I'm used to nissan mostly.

Edited February 14, 20188 yr by RCWD21