Pics are thumbnails. Click to enlarge.

Here are some before and after shots -- the lighter oil is 100% fresh Amsoil MTG, and the darker oil is the same stuff after being in my tranny for 10k miles:




And here is each bottle held up to the sun.

Before:


After:



I'm sorry I don't have more... The only fresh oil I had left was what you see in the pics, and I didn't feel like draining more than that out.

Any opinions? I don't know what it should look like after this much mileage so I wanted to hear what you guys think.

 

the 2nd picture of the 10k old, looks pretty decent if you ask me...the first pic looks real dark...hehe

well, u wont know whats going on until you send it to a lab...manual tranny fluid is suppose to last a long time...but i guess yours happen to turn black kinda early ...damn, what do i know

 

MTF/ATF do get dark and thinner over time. I have seen ATFs which were used motor oil, so color of the fluid is no indication of its health. An UOA (Used Oil Analysis) is the way to go...

 

if you want to be more certain, send it to blackstone for analysis.. but I don't see anything wrong with that for 10k miles.

 

Nice. Thanks, guys.

 

Just a little update:

I posted about this on the BITOG forums as well, and from the discussions there it shouldn't be anything to worry about... Probably just leftover gunk and assembly lube from the rebuild. It seems to be fairly common wisdom for new and rebuilt transmissions to do your first oil change between 5k and 10k, just to make sure you get all that crap out. From there on, as long as you use good quality synthetic oil, you should be good for very, very long change intervals.

They were also a little iffy on the open breather that this tranny has. The Amsoil tech that I spoke with said it shouldn't be a problem, but I just slapped a breather filter on the end of the hose just to be safe.

Incidentally, I'm starting to think the open breather has something to do with why people who run Redline MT-90 in their Maximas don't get the same service intervals as the people who run Amsoil MTG. AFAIK, MT-90 has a greater content of hygroscopic components, which would mean it would attract moisture more quickly. That would be double trouble since the performance of their ester basestocks is not very stable in the presence of water. If I'm right about that, a good breather filter could help those guys immensely.