Thread: Which is stronger LT85 (lightweight) or R380?

with standard gear oil in it Im not surprised he killed the 95, im impressed it got that far...

engine oil and ATF were the reccomended oils for the box as they are pump lubricated and the 80/90 is too thick for the pump killing it quickly. the newer oils should do better but I still run engine oil in the 95.

With the pump gone you're only getting splash lube value from the oil.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

With the pump gone you're only getting splash lube value from the oil.

I'm not sure how common this "shearing the pump drive" really is.

Mal Story told me the only boxes he has seen with sheared pumps were a few early LT95s that went down south to the snow filled with 90Wt oil.

But yes - 80W90 gear oil is the wrong oil for an LT95.

My LT85 (behind a 4BD1) did 240k km before it needed a rebuild (done by Mal Story).

It now has 150k km on it since the rebuild. ~100k of that running Syntrans, and ~80k of that with a turbo.

The 2nd gear synchro was getting rough, but after switching to syntrans it has started working again, and the box shows no sign of deterioration. The oil stays clean between changes.

Note mine is the solid case type.

3 of the box failures Ive seen

the first had sheared the drive dowl, (subsequent failure was bearings from memory)
the second had stripped out the drive gear (same same)
the last had wound the gears way down so the pumping was margingal. (the box was very noisy and would no longer stay in gear, there was no strainer installed either)

All were military boxes. all had been filled with 80/90 or worse.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

with standard gear oil in it Im not surprised he killed the 95, im impressed it got that far...

engine oil and ATF were the reccomended oils for the box as they are pump lubricated and the 80/90 is too thick for the pump killing it quickly. the newer oils should do better but I still run engine oil in the 95.

With the pump gone you're only getting splash lube value from the oil.

The worst part was an ex dealer mechanic put the gear oil in it. Pat

I'd expect that the LT85 would be stronger than the R380 solely based on the shaft spacing allowing for bigger gears on the LT85 than the R380 which is only an improved LT77. There might well be other contributors to the overall gearbox longivety.

Is the split case weakness solely due to the case not holding together compared to the one piece case?

thats more or less the case yes.

Can anyone show me the difference between the split case and one piece case lt85? Where's the split?

look at the pics linked further up in this thread that I shamelessly linked from elsewhere