The Dodge Challenger Message Board

After driving the R/T a number of times I came to the conclusion. This 18 spline box shifts harder than the New Process 435 Cast Iron beast in my Dodge PowerWagon! Dont get me wrong I love my manual tranny. I just wanted to "know" why other than the physical aspects such as gear size and material/design why it took such an effort to engage each gear. I contacted the A-833 expert himself Jamie Passon of Passon Performance and asked him why. He stated that my gearbox should have a specified lubricant and it would help with the effort as well as protect it under abusive conditions. this "piqued" my interest and I ordered 4 Qts. of it. I drained my "box" of the gear oil, and installed the Passon synthetic/blend in it,(approx. 3.5 Qts.).. A suction gun is almost necessary for this and I didnt spill a drop, very usefull tool. It made a HUGE difference! it shifts with about a 50% reduction in effort. I am impressed with his product and am recommending it to other members. Eddie

What is that specific lubricant?

Normally a 50-50 mixture of gear oil and transmission fluid works best in manual gearboxes. Some people just use straight trans fluid.

Normal heavy gear oil always makes the box shift hard. In particular when cold.

fbernard wrote:What is that specific lubricant?

Jaimie didnt tell me his recipe, sorry Fabian, he did say that when the cars were new the dealers would add as Dave said. A mixture of tranny fluid and Gear oil or straight tranny fluid or straight gear oil, depends on the climate. The service manual also recommends gear oil but a mixture is accepatable. Jaimie had a lubricant company blend a lubricant that promotes smooth shifting without being too slick,(those synchros must slow down to engage correct), and some synthetics cause clashing or crunching, also it has to protect without losing it's viscosity. Fabian, I'm not exagerating, this fluid/lubricant really did ease the effort. It's colored/dyed the same as transmission fluid,(red), but it's much thicker viscosity than Dexron/Type F. This stuff works!!

OK.
Jaime did tell me about that lube (which came free with the OD kit if I remember correctly), but shipping chemicals would have slowed the delivery a lot, so he told me to just mix 50/50 ATF and gear oil, which I did (looks red (like ATF), moderately thick, smells like rotten eggs (gear oil)).

Yep, sounds like the same stuff I used Fabian. And probably just as good. It really works well!

Eddie. I would bet that is exactly what the guy does.

I should have asked you Dave! and yes thats what he does because it smells just like the gear lube tranny fluid combo Fabian described.