MT-82 fluid change frequency?

[Condor1970]

Everyone always talks about the type of fluid they use, but how often do you change your MT-82 and differential fluids.

In all of my older cars, I always did a flush and diff change every 25k, but this time I was a bit concerned. The owners manual says 30-60k, but I changed at 25k, and the factory fluid looked very dark. The shifting was also getting very choppy, and not as smooth anymore.. Also, I noticed a little bit of glitter on the bottom of the oil pan. Sorry, forgot to take a pic. It wasn't horrendous though, just noticeable. Last year, I did miss one shift, and had the notorious grind for a split second. Not sure if that would have been bad enough to do that. Anyway, both fluids were quite dark.

I switched to Motul DCTF, and Motul 300LS respectively. The shifting immediately feels smoother, but not quite as smooth as when new.

How often do you all swap your tranny and diff fluids? I keep thinking I should increase the frequency to 20k or less for this car.

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[Elp_jc]

I was going to replace both the tranny and Torsen with the first oil change at 1K miles (which I did yesterday, at 1,128), but will wait until the 2nd, at around 6K. The differential has some factory crap coated on the gears that supposedly take longer to dislodge. So fluid will probably be dark, but should be clear after that point. I want to remove all the assembly and break-in crap from there. They take longer to break-in, so 6K miles sound like a better strategy. After that, will probably do it every 30K miles due to the TX heat; it's easy, and relatively cheap.

 

[Condor1970]

On my first diff change, I just did a drain and fill. However, the diff can be disassembled for a complete clean out and new cover gasket.
Is this recommended at any point?

 

[Elp_jc]

Unless you didn't change the fluid for 100K miles, no need for that. I'd leave it draining overnight, however, just to get most of the old fluid out. When done this early, you don't even have to do that, but I would. Once you get rid of the dark fluid due to the factory coating of the gears, fluid should come out clean next time. I was told to wait at least 5K miles on the differential, so that coating is all off the gears. I'll do it around 6K, at my next oil change (I'm at 1.1K now).

 

[jacknifetoaswan]

I changed mine at 25k (2.5 years old), and 46k (4.8 years old). I'll do it again in another 2-ish years.

JR

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