Transmission Fluid

Anyone worried about noise while turning at low speed has obviously never driven one of these with the factory transmission oil.

Friction modifiers make the oil more slippery to eliminate the noise at low speed

 

oh man these tranny's with OEM fluid are so noisy at slow speeds while turning especially cold. don't miss that yay tribodyn. now -25c and below when cold I still get some but not nearly as bad and certainly better than on redline

 

I see, guess I was spoiled by the previous owner using something non-OEM and again by the last change with Tribodyn.

If the EX oil has friction modifiers to make the oil MORE slippery, how does that make them better suited to LSD's than the EX-2, which I thought was incompatible with LSDs due to the oil being 'too slick' for the diff?

End of the day I just want to go with the same fluid I have in my gearbox currently, which was the old Tribodyn stuff without the LSD additive, but I can't seem to figure out which one of the current lineup is equivalent/closest to that. I just don't want to cause excess wear to the diff if I can help it.

 

i just used Tribodyn to replace the Motocraft oil I had in my transmission, it definitely is a better fluid. Less noise and overall just a smoother feeling and sounding transmission now. The only problem is trying to find it again lol. I got lucky on Amazon but this is tough to find.

 

buy it directly from tribodyn, they usually have 20% off coupons rolling heck even in Canada I buy from the USA site and ship to me here

 

They offer EX1 and EX2 but the EX1 is offered also with a LSD additive and suited towards that, in the ms3 we have a LSD in the transaxle. If you dont want any additives then they offer it without and its just EX1 75w90 then ofc theres EX1 75w90LS and EX2 75w90. Im not too sure on the details but i have seen a few differ. I do know the EX2 does have less blue dye in it the EX1 tho

 

Coming up on 2000 miles with the no-LSD-additive EX1 fluid with no funny noises and buttery smooth shifts. Seems to be pretty good!

 

I said in an earlier post that most people on BobIsTheOilGuy are not impressed with Tribodyn, but, then again, I think most of them haven't actually tried using it. As a general rule, BITOG usually gives mediocre feedback on "boutique" oils. If people using it are happy with it, good for you.

I thought I'd mention that BITOG actually does give good reviews to one "boutique" oil. The annoyingly generically named "High Performance Lubricants." I'm no expert, so if you aren't interested, fine, be happy with what you use. But if interested, they have a "Differential Life" product which I just recently put into my rear diff and transfer case. They also have "Manual Transmission Life" which I've purchased, but not yet used, as my RedLine trans fluid isn't that old. Houston doesn't get that cold so I don't really have any issue with the fluid. But next time I change the fluid I will use the Manual Transmission Life.

Differential Life – Advanced Lubrication, Inc.
Manual Transmission Life – Advanced Lubrication, Inc.

 

Torco RTF GL5/GL6 if you don't wanna run the unicorn goo

 

Changed from XT-M5-QS to Tribodyn TRI-EX2, and it appears way better to me. Been running the motorcraft for several years and I’d say my trans did not like it. I’m going to need to pull the trans at some point anyway because 2nd gear popping out issues, but it is grinding way less now, when before I was nervous even to shift into 2nd at normal cruising pace.