My tranny started feeling mighty weird the other day, almost as if it might be about to go out on me. I wasn't sure so I pulled out my magnetic drain plug to check for anything fishy. Sure enough, this is how it came out.



Hey! I don't remember putting in those metal shavings last time I refilled the transmission!

I would recommend everybody run magnetic drainplugs just so you have a little bit better of an idea of how your rear end and tranny or holding up!



Tom

 

When I drained the fluid on my dead tranny large metal chunks came out . Some were about an inch long. Probably gear teeth.

 

damn ...well im sure some people are happy with out teeth but that looks like it hurts

 

haha good lord

 

That looks normal for the big gear boxes i work with at work... It depends on how long that fluid has been in there and how long it took to accumulate... if you change your fluid now and flush the tranny, and check the drain plug again soon and it looks like that again... then i'd start to worry, unless you've already done this.

 

LOL. Looks exactly like mine after I broke my cluster shaft. Believe it or not, it's actually fairly normal to have a "fuzz" on the magnetic plug after a transmission oil change. Some of it is actual wear on the hard parts but most of it is shavings from the syncros.

 

just about all manual transmissions and differentials have magnetic drain plugs and that looks fairly normal, unless you see large flakes of metal that is not an abnormal look to the drain plug on a transmission or differential that hasn't been serviced for a while.

 

Well, this transmission is definitely trash, it doesn't work very well at all anymore to begin with.... plus I changed the tranny fluid about a month ago. Just trying to help others be more aware about mag plugs.

Also - the magnetic plugs do a better-than-nothin job of keepin those loose pieces from recirculating. This probably lengthens your transmission life about .05% pretty sweet huh!! (please note the sarcasm)

 

well you're making it sound like the trannies did not come with magnetic plugs, just trying to save some people the trouble of finding this out on their own rather than locating the right size plug and draining their tranny to only find they already have one in there, lol.

 

I don't think I had any on my tranny plug when I pulled it, but that was like a year and a half ago.

 

lol.
im glad you added that, i was about to start searching on where to get one

 

Is the size of.. um... half a q-tip (assuming the fuzzy part was solid like the middle instead of fuzzy) considered large flakes? That's about how big and long the metal pieces coming out of my tranny were.

 

Surprisingly, I didn't have any metal particles on my drain plug when I changed my tranny fluid about a month ago. My trans whines like no other too.

 

I take it as more of a heads-up for people that own other vehicles in addition to their 7's. I don't think my old Honda or Mitsubishi had magnetic plugs.

 

I use 4 oz. of this in the tranny, and 4 oz. in the diff.

http://www.militec1.com/miva/merchan...ategory_Code=1

 

That's some expensive stuff.

I've heard of good results from Lucas transmission additive, but I haven't tried it myself.

 

I like the Militec. It cost about $23 bucks for a 16oz. bottle at BAP-GEON. I've seen drainplugs like the thread starters in my transmissions before, so I took this measure to "maybe" help out. I can say that it has. The next fliud change yeilded much less shavings and residue.

Pretty good for a $6 usage.

 

BTW: a magnetic drain plug in your engine oil drain plug is recommended as well.

There will be some metalic build up there in your oil that the filter does not get.