Does the MCS 6-speed use gear oil or engine oil? Has anyone tried a good synthetic oil like Redline, etc. and found smoother/easier shifting?

 

Gear oil of course.....lol

75W80 it will be OK. With elf works perfectly.

 

Redline MTL works great in my 03's .
Bill

 

I also run Redline MTL.

 

Gear oil is a high pressure lubricant for things with hypoid gears. A MINI tranny does not have any hypoid gears in it. Rear diffs do. I have heard that MTL works, but have no personal experience with it in a MINI tranny.

 

MTL works good. I have had it in for 10K with great results.
Get it from MyOilShop.com with "MSO10" discount code for 10% off.

 

myoilshop.com doesn't exist by itself anymore. They merged with racerpartswholesale.com. I don't think there is a place to enter in the discount code on the new checkout. They still have very good prices but check with JSCSpeed as they also have good prices on Redline stuff.

 

The stock MTF-94 is the good stuff and the only reasons to use another synchro friendly product would be for convenience or product loyalty sake.


RL MTL has the same viscosity and classification rating as the MTF-94, so it could be considered a safe alternative, but without long term fluid analysis the service life/fluid change interval is in question. BTW, I tried Silkolene Silktran SYN 5 SAE 75W90 API GL4/5 and it slowed shift engagement under cool temperture conditions.

Gear oils are very hard on synchromesh gears and will shorten their service life.

A how-to http://www.lonestarminiclub.com/foru...read.php?t=474

 

I agree with you. If you are not having shifting issues that you are trying to fix. I'd recommend the MTF 94 also. I believe the Redline MTL has an additive to help baulky syncro's.

 

Synchromax that's all i will be using. it made it feel so much better. plus it is like $9 for a QT. if you want a big write up i can find it on a other site. (svt focus tranny)

 

RP Synchromax can be used in transaxles like ours, but Royal Purple Tech Services Manager David Canitz had this to say when I asked about a comparable product to MTF-94, “I would use one of our racing engine oils due to our high film strength additive technology, either the XPR 5W20 or XPR 5W30.” Because Synchromax is a lighter weight fluid it will free-up some HP if you wanted to do well on a dyno for example, but its protective service life in the Getrag 6 speed is an unknown. The motor oils recommended by RP would need more frequent changes than the MTF-94.

 

I think the main issue is that MINI says the fluid is a "lifetime fluid." It makes me wonder what they think the lifetime of the transmission will be. The fluid will shear and wear particles will be introduced into it with every shift. I changed mine over to Redline MTL around 50k miles and I noticed an improvement in shifting. I plan on sticking to a 40-50k mile fluid change.

 

I sure don't believe it's lifetime. No way! I'll be changing out at 30,000 miles. I have a LSD & will be using the MINI recommended fluid.

 

well i had it in my car for about 10k and i haven't notice anything yet, and there are guys on the other sites that has been putting RP in there cars for yrs. if you take care of your car it really wouldn't matter what oil you use. redline a great company, but there were more RP user so i went with that.

try both. i will try both. it shouldnt be that hard to change out.

 

The main reason I'll use the MINI recommended fluid is the LSD. I'd hate to have a problem with it because I used a fluid that wasn't specified by them.

 

thanks for the info. I don't have any problem but have found Redline to work great in the past. The reason I asked about gear oil vs. Engine oil is that I work on Hondas that use a light-weight (20wt I believe) MTF and if you use a heavier (75/90 etc.) gear oil you'll have problems.

 

using Motul Gear 300

 

Does anyone have a link on how to change it? I'm at 54k right now and would like to look into getting it changed for piece of mind...

Thanks!
-Cody

 

Post #8

 

Duh, thanks. I read right past that!

-Cody

 

Cody it's very important to crack the fill plug loose first.

 

+1

 

Will do... Anyone running Ams oil? The only thing I could find on their website was 5w30 http://www.amsoil.com/storefront/mtf.aspx

I'm asking about Ams Oil because I get it locally a little bit cheaper than other brands.

Thanks,
-Cody

 

I know this thread is ancient, but figured I'd post a follow up...

I ran Redline MTL for the past 15k, and once it was in there for a few k miles, fast shifts were _slightly_ improved over stock.

Since I run Amsoil in the engine of the Mini & my other cars (with great results) I decided to try the Amsoil MTF in the trans during my last fluid service. After putting a few thousand miles on the car with the Amsoil MTF in the trans, I do NOT recommend the Amsoil MTF for our Mini's Trans. Either it was a bad idea to follow the Redline with this, or it's friction modifier package is just slightly off for our particular vehicles, but the shifting is definitely worse compared to Redline MTL.

Manual transmissions are a picky lot, with the design of the synchros requiring a specific viscosity & friction package to engage quickly & smoothly... sometimes there's room for improvement (with a fluid) and sometimes there's not.

I may try GM Synchromesh in there since it's worked very well in other vehicles and I change it every couple years anyway. Otherwise, I'll just go back to Redline MTL.

 

A revised ancient thread when i was needing it.

Question... Does the car not need to be level to fully top off the transmission oil while filling?