Thread: Anyone heard of Neo gearbox oil.

Why not Castrol Syntrax? Its 75/90, it does the gearbox, transfer and diffs.
I know some use Syntrans 75/85. Cheaper than the Neo.

Trev.

RHD ?
absolute bloody overkill for an R380 manual gearbox. It was originally developed for F1 and Champ Car transaxles. It was also the only gear oil recommended by X-trac for any of their gearboxes, (they supply most F1 teams with gearbox internals) including the transmissions used in the majority of the WRC cars. Remember that all these race car 'boxes also house the CWP, an R380 doesn't. Hell, I've never even used it. I only used HD in the race car or 7wt as it didn't have the power/torque to necessitate RHD. I'd also be curious how it shifts as it is an LSD fluid, although I supplied a mate with the HD for his then fiance's Pug 405MI and it was a vast improvement on whatever was originally in it.
The specs sheet I have lists it as 15.4 cSt @ 100* and a VI of 180. I agree with Trev, If you want to use a 75W-90 save some bucks and use Syntrax. It's an ester/PAO base (Neo is a di-ester), is not an LSD fluid and as such is optimised for synchro performance. In an independent test sheet I have it was ranked either first or second with Motul 300V 75w/90 and Elf HTX729 (pure race gear oils) across all categories in a lab test and in front of Redline 75w-90 NS, Shell XGO, Mobil 1 SHC, Agip Rotra LSX and Mobil XHP (all synthetic).

I use Caltex MTF 94, was made by caltex for land rover manual gearboxes, it even comes in a plain white drum with land rover on it. cost me about $120 for 20L from the caltex distributor in Bathurst, has been great. Matt

Rick I am using Castrol SynTRANS at the moment in my R380 and am finding that the gears crunch between 3rd and 4th if I shift even close to quickly, selection of first isn't too flash either.

What would you recommend - am totally lost now. Is Castrol SynTRAX better in the R380 - I thought this was to be used in the xfer case as opposed to the main gearbox. What would be your preferences in order of priority? Many thks for your help mate. Daz

Generally, Syntrans=gearbox, Syntrax=t/case and diffs. With any vehicle, firstly look at the factory recommendations (in this case, R380=MTF 94) and if you aren't happy with it use a fluid with a similar viscosity (actual viscosity in centiStokes [cSt] as printed on a TDS, not the SAE viscosity range. Comparable fluids to MTF 94 are Syntrans, Redline MTL, etc.)
Trev has used Syntrax successfully. I wouldn't have thought to use a fluid that thick as it is around 14.5 cSt @ 100*C, yet I'm ending up close to there with my MTL/MT90 brew (at a guess, around 12.5cSt) as I was getting fluid thinning in hot weather, and the cold weather performance hasn't deteriorated. Remember that ATF was originally the spec in these boxes, and an ATF is around 7cSt @ 100*C. The oil in these boxes must get fairly warm, as I have a factory oil cooler t/stat housing, and the t/stat is rated at 87*C opening.

As I said before, Syntrans had the best upshift performance of all the fluids used in my experience (Caltex/Land Rover MTF 94, Castrol Syntrans, Castrol VMX (yuk), Redline MTL, Redline MTL/MT90 brew)

I've never had a problem on the 3-4 upchange. Very occaisonally beat the synchros on 2-3, but I put that down to operator error.

An oils syncro performance is based on a few things, obviously wear or the state of the various gearbox components, the fluids viscosity and the various friction modifiers used by the blender to enhance synchro performance.
Some oils suit some gearboxes better than others, but the differences are usually across types of boxes, not individual ones of the same type.

As I said, RHD is a GL5/6(obsolete) very heavy duty hypoid limited slip diff fluid that has found to work brilliantly in race car rear ends/transaxles and X-trac 4WD transmissions. (eg, Neal Bates used to use it in the 4WD gearbox of the Toyota Celica he rallied when he was sponsored by one of the major oil companies)
I'm not really sure if it would help your situation, and if you wanted to try a heavier fluid, I'd use Syntrax first as
1. it's miles cheaper (although that normally wouldn't influence my decision, but you are experimenting here)
2. I t has proven synchro performance in a wide variety of gearboxes. I've used it and Redline MT90 in Patrols and the performance was identical and both were better than Fuchs 75W-90 .

But if Coopers are recommending it, they obviuosly have experience in using it, and it is only just under three litres...

[EDIT] just rembered that Neo RHD was considered the oil of choice in WRX gearboxes. These need a 75W90 GL5 fluid (hypoid diff), and a lot of people reckon that it was about the only oil that gave reasonable changes. IIRC, MRT were using it on theirs and customer cars. Something else to ponder.

I re-checked with Ward and it was Neo 7wt that he was talking about, not RHD like I thought.

Is anyone going to make an inane comment about The Matrix in this thread ever???