
Recommended Fluids
Contributed by Jeff Curtis
TRANSAXEL
For the manual transmission (transaxle), regardless of FWD or AWD, you
want a gear oil with a viscosity of approximately 75W90 with a rating
of GL-4 (GL-5 *may* be hazardous to your synchronizers). Appropriate
oils would be Redline MT-90 or BG UltraGuard. Some people, myself
included, have used lighter gear oils (lower viscosity) such as Redline
MTL or BG SyncroShift. Other people have tried Mobil1's 75W90 product
but this is apparently a GL-5 formulation and therefore you may want to
avoid it. These are all synthetic gear oils. You can use a
non-synthetic 75W90 if you want to, but... why would you want to?
TRANSFER CASE
For the transfer case, you want a gear oil with a viscosity of
approximately 75W90, and it is unknown (to me, anyway) whether the GL-x
rating of the oil is relevant (I suspect that it isn't, especially
since there are no synchronizers present in the transfer case -
however, the service manual calls for GL-4). There is a single product
which most of us use in the transfer case: Redline Shockproof Heavy
(not to be confused with Redline Shockproof Light or Redline Shockproof
Superlight - make sure you get the Shockproof Heavy!). Redline's
Shockproof Heavy is nominally rated as a 75W90 but in terms of its
maximum performance, Redline claims it can be rated all the way up to
75W250. That's serious high-temperature protection.
DIFFERENTIAL
For the rear differential, you want a gear oil with a viscosity of
90, 85W90, 80W90, 80W, or 75W depending on operating temperature, and
a rating of GL-5 or higher (GL-6 is the highest I'm aware of at this
point, although I believe some manufacturers are rating their oils as
"GL-6+" to indicate that they exceed GL-6 by a fair margin). There
is no strong consensus on the gear oil of choice for the rear
differential, primarily due to the fact that rear differential problems
are extremely rare on the AWD cars. I've personally never heard of
anyone ever having a problem more serious than an oil leak from the
rear differential on our cars. Some people use Redline Shockproof
Heavy in the rear differential. Personally, I'm still using the stock
oil from the factory.
CAPACITIES
on an FWD transaxle, you need about 2.4qt.
On an AWD transaxle, you need about 2.5qt (1st generation) or 2.6qt (2nd gen).
For the transfer case (AWD only), you need about 0.29qt (1g) or 0.32qt
(2g). NOTE: I recently changed my transfer case oil for the second
time, and I decided to inspect my old oil, so I captured it. Once I
had it all out, it seemed to me that I had an awful lot of it, so I
measured how much came out, and I had about 0.52qt in there! I can't
explain this discrepancy.
For the rear differential (AWD only), you need about 1.16qt.
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