Well I've made it home for the summer and it's time to start tearing this thing apart. I will begin tomorrow, but yesterday I took it to the dyno. Laid down 503 / 1215. I was very pleased with the numbers, but the knocking is getting worse to it's time to take it apart.

 

I could certainly be wrong as well, just seen enough marketing hype(lies) to be slow to believe things like that lol

AFIK the 5100's are the more HD shock but not specifically valved for the Dodge trucks. The yellow/blue ones, IIRC, are specifically valved but a lighter duty shock. 

Lots of work done this weekend. I started out by pulling the old wheels and tires off. I then pulled the front brakes and put some grease in the bearings. The passenger side is still leaking, but I think I can limp it until I graduate from school. Still Zero issues with ABS  even though there's grease on the sensor and tone ring.

 

I then put the new wheels and tires on. Makes the truck look a bit different. I like it! 

 

 

From there I put it up on the lift and drained the transmission fluid. It was Royal Purple ATF, but surprisingly it came out clean with no flakes and didn't smell burnt. The plug had the normal goop on it though. I then pulled the PTO covers and cleaned them up along with their mating surfaces. Then I used the "adapter kit" from Genos and installed a Fast cooler on the drivers side along with my trans temp probe from Quadzilla. The fast cooler only had a 1/4in NPT plug, so I had to use a 1/4in to 1/8 in adapter. This has made the temps completely inaccurate. After driving 45 min or so at 72mph the gauge read 120 on the quad. I Checked it with a IR gun and the bottom of the case was 165. If I have time this week, I'll pull the cover and weld a 1/8in NPT bung to the inside of the cover so the probe actually sticks into the fluid. VERY FRUSTRATING TO DO THINGS TWICE!!!! Anyway, here's a couple pictures.

 

 

 

I then filled it with 8 quarts 75w90 GL4  full synthetic Amsoil (https://www.amsoil.com/shop/by-product/transmission-fluid/manual/manual-transmission-and-transaxle-gear-lube-75w-90/) which @AH64ID helped me purchase. Great price on the oil and was at my door in a couple days! (Factory is 6 quarts, 1 quart for the cooler, 1 quart above full)

 

I then pulled the secondary turbo off to replace the gaskets between the manifold and the turbo because they were leaking pretty bad. I found a chunk of O ring missing on the intermediate charge piping. I've still got to track one of those down, but it doesn't seem to be affecting it too bad.

 

And here's a picture because why not!

Lookin good Tyler! 

 

Speaking as someone who knows little about transmissions. Is it possible the trans case can get hotter and retain heat better then the actual trans fluid which is why your seeing the spread you are? Or is 120 too low a number, period?

7 hours ago, notlimah said:

Lookin good Tyler! 

 

Speaking as someone who knows little about transmissions. Is it possible the trans case can get hotter and retain heat better then the actual trans fluid which is why your seeing the spread you are? Or is 120 too low a number, period?

From what I can tell, 120 is too low period. The bottom of the transmission is only heated by fluid, and the bottom is where a good amount of cooling is done on the transmission. That tells me the fluid is at least the temperature of the bottom of the case, if not higher. 

so the quad gauge is now at least coming off bottom?  I know my trans temp rarely goes above 130*f when I am unloaded, but I have a transcooler up front.  Do you?

6 minutes ago, Me78569 said:

so the quad gauge is now at least coming off bottom?  I know my trans temp rarely goes above 130*f when I am unloaded, but I have a transcooler up front.  Do you?

Manual with a fast cooler no trans cooler up front! 

 

Yes it finally came up. Doesn't read below 60 and takes quite a while to warm up! 

Yep 60 is the min it will read.  Glad it works I was scratching my head.  

 

I dunno what a fast cooler is I will use DR google.

1 hour ago, Me78569 said:

Yep 60 is the min it will read.  Glad it works I was scratching my head.  

 

I dunno what a fast cooler is I will use DR google.

The picture on my bed.... The picture of the transmission has the cooler hanging off the side  

So I wanted to give a review of this oil. Again, thank you John! @AH64ID

 

So the biggest thing I've noticed is the transmission is quieter. With ATF, if I was below 1600rpm the transmission would growl pretty bad with gear rollover. That is now virtually gone! So much so that I've wondered why I'm not building boost quickly then I'll look down and it's at 1200rpm!

As for shifting.... it shifts much smoother! Before, it would sometimes roll to the next tooth when pushing it into gear, but now the shifter just slides into gear with ease. I can also shift much faster with less pressure than before.

 

Temp wise, I'm not sure because I didn't have a probe before. If it stays below 180 while cruising 80mph I'll be happy. More to come...

When you say it rolls to the next tooth, do you mean you can feel it catch before it drops in? My nv4500 does that quite a bit. I wonder if I would benefit from the amsoil fluid for my nv4500. I also get a decent amount of gear rollover. Maybe I need to have a talk with @AH64ID....

31 minutes ago, leathermaneod said:

When you say it rolls to the next tooth, do you mean you can feel it catch before it drops in? My nv4500 does that quite a bit. I wonder if I would benefit from the amsoil fluid for my nv4500. I also get a decent amount of gear rollover. Maybe I need to have a talk with @AH64ID....

Correct. It would catch, then rollover and drop in gear.

What oil do you have in there?

Let's just say John destroys the price on Amsoil's website, and it shows up at your door quickly!

I have 4.5 - 5qts of the OEM stuff from dodge. It hasn't been in there very long either, but I need to drain it anyway to fix my leaking pto covers. 

18 minutes ago, leathermaneod said:

I have 4.5 - 5qts of the OEM stuff from dodge. It hasn't been in there very long either, but I need to drain it anyway to fix my leaking pto covers. 

I slathered some RTV on the side to seal mine up... they are a pita IMO. G56 has a drain plug

 

Anyway, I wouldn't change to amsoil if you have the original stuff from dodge. It's made for it. However, if you can't find the dodge stuff I think amsoil is the route I'd go.

Well the thing is, like I said I'm probably gona drain it to fix the covers, and the OEM stuff is about twice the cost of the amsoil. Plus after hearing what you said about it, I'm wondering if it would treat my trans better. I'd really like to go with the Mobil 50wt, but I haven't seen enough data yet to make me feel comfortable.

I just put Amsoil in my NV4500 two months ago. It's nice and smoooove! I went with Amsoil based on the savings over the oem stuff and I've got 2 other trucks that family have that have been running it for years without any issue. 

Thanks for the input! Smoother has got to be better right?

Where is @AH64ID these days? I've sent him a pm on here and on CF and no answer....

Well I wasn't happy with the sensor location.... Down where it was it would catch snow, and I don't think I was getting accurate readings. So this weekend I drained all the fluid again (came out nice and honey colored like when I put it in) removed the PTO cover and got to work. I picked up a steel double female 1/8in NPT bung from napa and cut it in half. I then drilled a hole in the cover and welded the 1/2 bung to the inside of the cover. I figured the further in the better! Sealed everything up and was good to go.

 

I drove it 140 miles yesterday with good results. Running about 65-70 in 6th gear and 70* ambilent temps the transmission stayed around 130 to 132. After getting on the freeway and running 75-80 for 40 miles or so the temps slowly climbed up to 139. Traffic then got heavy and I bounced between 0mph and 50mph. When traffic slowed down the temps dropped back down to 130. Looks like the fluid is staying cool and doing its job!

Thanks for all of your post and pictures. 

 

How high is the fluid level in the transmission in relation to the temp probe?