Thread: Puma Transfer Case wear metals high

Just a quick comment about the hot seat box. This seems to vary from vehicle to vehicle. I'm on my 5th Defender over the years and one of my 90's (1996 300Tdi) would get so hot that your leg would look sunburned and the handbrake would be untouchable on the metal parts. The transfer case and gearbox did however function faultlessly for 312,000km with operator's manual recommended oil changes.

My current Puma runs a little hotter than my last 300Tdi, but not significantly so and a lot cooler than that particular 90.

I do not have the technical knowledge regarding oils you guys have been discussing, but the hot seatbox is not neccesarily linked with bad wear or dodgy oil in your drive train.

Cheers!

G'day Tomo
The 75W140 synthetic will be too heavy for the gearbox, even with higher ambients. I run it in both diffs and transfer case, and am very happy with it. You just need to be careful with warranty, I guess, as there have been numerous faulty diffs & transmissions replaced under warranty...you wouldn't want to give them an excuse to deny a claim.
Brid

Originally Posted by Tomo

[snip]

Should I run synthetic 75/140 GL5 in my gb and Tcase, since living in tropics?
What about diffs? run what is is stated in manual? 80/90 hypoid from memory...

sorry to hyjack thread......

No, use what's recommended in the g/box, (Castrol BOT 130M) just reduce the recommended service interval dramatically.

IMO, with such a limited sump capacity I wouldn't go much past 20,000km, regardless of what brand/type of fluid is used.
I can go 40,000km on a Patrol g/box but they hold near as dammit 4 litres, the Getrag only holds 2.4l max, much the same as an R380 and I don't think it runs an oil cooler either (splash lubed, isn't it ?)

Contaminants and oil shear will be in evidence by then, although it may not be as bad as an R380 in that regard.

In the t/case a good 75W-90 will be fine unless you really cane it and do lots of heavy towing, then i'd move to a 75W-110 (if you can find one) or add an Africaland or Rocky Mountain extended sump.
A 75W or 80W-140 is almost overkill, although I know of a number of users

There are some excellent mineral 80W-90 oils too that you can use in the t/case and diffs.
Lubrication Engineers and Swepco are two blenders from the US that make very, very good mineral based diff oils, better than some of the syn oils.

While technically you don't need a hypoid diff oil in the diffs (or T/case for that matter) I'd run the best diff oils I could (and I do) as the Rover diffs are so weak, anything that helps them live longer is good.