Thread: R380, transfer case and Diff synthetic oils

Originally Posted by Vern

Rick, what would you recommend to go in am isuzu msa5 speed? I have a reco box about to go in, and plan to give it an oil change after a couple of thousand k's.
So was thinking vmx80 first then something a little better for the second change.

Damien, I've never played with the MSA box, but if you've been happy with VMX, Syntrans will be better, protect better, shift better and last longer.
Just be careful as there's about five flavours of Syntrans now, I'd be guessing the 75W-85 version would best suit, and that one carries a Volvo trucks part number too.
It's a little lighter than a 15W-40 engine oil, but engine oils shear really quickly in gearbox usage so would be roughly an SAE30 in a fairly short time.

There's quite a few really good manual trans fluids now, it just depends on $ and availability.

Originally Posted by ozscott

Not sure how I am meant to get 2.8 litres in the gearbox. Could only get 2.5 litres in. I had let it drain for an hour but perhaps it needed an all night drain to get it all...it has to drain down from the cooler. Anyway the 75w85 full synthetic is in the box and doing transfer case now. Cheers

Keep us updated with the results and whether u can notice any major differences....


Got to do mine soon....