Hello all,
I’ve searched but not managed to find an answser to this question, so please excuse me if it is in fact a repeat.
I wish to top up the oil level in my (four speed) gearbox through the gear lever hole (i.e. taking the chance to do so whilst I’ve got the gear lever removed). Is there a level I can see to top it up to just by looking down the gear lever hole, or do I have to still have to remove the normal filler/level plug in order to be sure not to over-fill?
Hoping someone can help, and (if not too early…) Happy Christmas to all!
Tony
Maybe if you do fill it to the hole, you could post a message sharing with everyone if there is an easy level/guide visible from the top,
Perhaps someone with more engineering/mechanical background could explain what are the risks involved in overfilling. - expansion when hot and overflow or more serious???
i recall the reccomended amount being a quart ( might be 1.1) , so if you put the specified amount down the lever hole then you wil be ok. and will not have to have the car level with the fill plug out.
The gearbox is filled by adding gear oil by your method you choice. Either the side filler plug needs to be removed ( to prevent over filling) and to give the proper level or the drain plug on the bottom removed and th box compleatly drained and 2.1 U.S. pints (.99 L) put back in. The Ford box has no dip stick to check the level of the oil in the box.
Gary
Photo shows how the oil can move inside the gearbox. I pull the side plug and fill through it, how you do it is up to you.
It’s probably not a big deal, but some quantity of oil remains in the tailshaft housing after the case has been drained. This is the oil that ends up on your garage floor when you remove the engine - a few ounces, I would guess.
Consistent advice I had from experienced “old hands” in different development shops through the ages was always to slightly underfill transmissions and engines - never overfill. That’s why I’m happy with 1 US quart in the Elan gearbox.
When I recently refilled my box with Redline I drained out the old oil and got out about half a litre. Left it draining for a while and on a level surface.
Just as well I’m doing this I thought, must have been getting low.
I refilled to the level of the plug in the side of the box using a large syringe with MTL from a 1US quart bottle. ( giving it time to settle ).
1 US quart = 0.946 litres or 946 mils. ( according to the bottle).
Now here’s the problem.
There’s 330 mil left in the bottle which suggests the box holds about 600 mil or 1 pint. This ties in with what I got out in the first place.
This is half what the book says.
How warm was the gearbox? if you drained it cold, you won’t get a liter out of it. Also whats a while? If you look at the photos I posted, not much of any is going to drain out of the tailshaft.
The oil I drained from my gearbox prior to using Red Line was placed in the empty Red Line bottle with only a very little left over. So this gave me confidence that the right amount was in place.
As original oil was only 100 miles old and still very clean ? I used it all to mix a quantity of trunnion ?slop? for a friend and myself.
Decided I couldn’t have the smallest gearbox in Elan history and I must have cocked something up.
Yep…
Must have either not given the oil time to run into the furthest recesses of the box or, more likely, thought I felt the oil level on my finger thru the side hole when it was actually some spillage and not the actual level.
Anyway, re-visited the “problem” this morning. Got the car over the pit and squirted in the remaining oil.
Nice to know that thousands of Elan owners over the last 40 years haven’t been using too much oil…
Hello all,
and as suggested by Barney, here is the answer to my own question.
I drained the box, and then poured in one litre of oil through the gear lever hole. It all disappeared out of sight - none was visible peering in with a torch. So there is no easy level/guide visible from the top.
Tony
Now you know it’s at the right level couldn’t you make a dipstick for use via the gearlever hole? (Something like a piece of piano wire with the present level scribed on it? You could then post the measurements on here so that we could all make our own versions.)
Today I took my gearlever out again. This gave me the chance to try to provide the above information. First I peered down the gearlever hole with a torch and found that in fact oil IS visible, deep in the depths, looking down past the left hand selector “slot”. I then got a length of stiff (domestic wiring) insulated electric wire, to act as a dip stick, pushing it down past the left hand selector “slot”. After several trials, I found it was easier to see the trace of (still new and therefore pretty transparent…) oil on the cable after I had roughened the surface of the insulation.
I pushed the wire straight down until it would go no further (i.e. stopped by the casing directly below I think). Here is what I found. The distance from the end of the wire up to the top of the gearbox hole was 177mm. (I mention this as a control figure, to make sure you can check that we’re talking about the same thing…) The distance UP (from the end of the wire) to the oil level “line” was 30mm. The distance DOWN (from the top of the gearbox hole) to the oil level “line” was 147mm.
The above measurements taken with car on level and completely cold. (Well about 15?C actually, we don’t do cold… ). This is after having drained the box and refilled with one litre - so my level may be slightly high given that when you drain things they are never really emptied. Also between putting the oil in and doing this measurement the car had been driven about 20 miles - so the oil had had the chance to find its normal level.
Perhaps someone would like to do this measurement with a box that had been filled up to the filler/level plug and then driven, just to make sure?
Tony
The measurement you give would seem to make alot of sense, 1 litre = 1,000,000 cubic millimetres. So a depth of 30mm would give a gearbox area of 33,333 square millimetres. So supposing a gearbox length of 200mm (approx 8") then the gearbox would be 167mm wide (6.5 inches approximately). All of which appear to be in the right ball park.
I intend to check my gearbox level shortly, so I’ll try your level measurement technique and see what I find.
Lads, please have a close look at the photo on the previous page. there is not much of a passage until you get to the ball bearings before oil will move from the gearcase to the tailshaft housing. use the fill plug hole put oil in until it flows out.
Maybe if you do fill it to the hole, you could post a message sharing with everyone if there is an easy level/guide visible from the top,
). This is after having drained the box and refilled with one litre - so my level may be slightly high given that when you drain things they are never really emptied. Also between putting the oil in and doing this measurement the car had been driven about 20 miles - so the oil had had the chance to find its normal level.