Redline or royal purple or what?

whtwgn · Post by **whtwgn** » 16 May 2011, 16:30

For a 1990 240 dl 5 speed gearbox.all input welcome.
been hearing mixed info
atf yes atf no please help.

Post by **billofdurham** » 23 May 2011, 11:49

Automatic transmission fluid type F.

Bill.

whtwgn · Post by **whtwgn** » 24 May 2011, 17:03

Thank you for your resonse.

Post by **jimmy57** » 24 May 2011, 21:57

Type f causes problems with the first gear brake that dampens gear rattle.
In Europe they use Volvo Thermal Oil which is a synthetic oil. This product is not stocked in US parts system.
A few years back when I worked at a dealer we had a company that bought a small fleet of 240 wagons with M47II gearboxes. After the 30 K service when we drained anf refilled with TYpe F they all started having hard to engage complaints and the clutches were fully disengaging. We drained and refilled them as an effort to flush them and then we had a couple melt the plastic cage for the first gear roller bearing. The thrust washer on first gear got hot and melted the cage.
WE sought tech assistance from Volvo (cars were still in warranty). A tech guy came out and I rebuilt the gearboxes with him so he could see the failures. I re-assembled with closer end play and the cars both had subsequent failures and were hard to engage first gear if you idled and released clutch with trans in neutral.
I dismantled and inspected and they both melted first gear bearing cage. I replaced affected pieces and put 10W30 synthetic in them and they shifted better than ever and had no more failures. The others that hadn't failed but just had hard gear selection were drained and refilled with synthetic motor oil and it fixed those. We used synthetic oil in any that came in with high effort gear selection with success.
THe royal purple product for manual gearboxes and transaxles is a good choice. It was developed to address "crunchy" gear selector action according to something I read about the product when it came out.