Having issues with intermittent sticky shifting lately in the transmission, a little perplexed.
03 wrangler 6CYL, 204k miles, original NV3550 transmission.
when the jeep was initially purchased a few years back with ~140k miles, I had drained the transmission "fluid" which was red. was a very thin viscosity but looked identical to ATF. no shifting issues were present at the time but was done as one of them "who knows what the previous owner had done". I went with Pennzoil synchromesh for the replacement fluid with the Chrysler manual trans fluid spec number MS-9224 printed on the label.
about 50k miles of perfectly fine shifting and no problems otherwise.
earlier this year I decided it was time to replace the fluid in the transmission and again went with the pennzoil syncromesh with the same MS-9224 fluid spec. its been about 5k miles'ish estimated and just the past few weeks ive been having intermittent difficulty downshifting to the following gear while decelerating on highway exit ramps after about 20 minutes of 75mph driving.
Im at 204k miles on the original transmission, its behaving perfectly fine other than the occasional sticky downshifts observed these past few weeks. and to clarify.. by sticky, I mean ill be grabbing ahold of the shifter and casually attempt to shift out of gear but am blocked from doing so and ill attempt to shift again and its fine like nothing is wrong.
could happen at any point too. could be going from 5th to 4th and it sticks once but is fine after reattempting to shift. or I could downshift out of 5th working down the gears and 3rd gear decides to stick but then fine thereafter.
I have looked through the NV3550 factory manual and found sticky shifting listed as a potential low fluid level possibility but honestly I havent yet crawled under to inspect if oil has been vaporizing as I see no leaks whatsoever otherwise.
Im suspicious I am coming close to EOL for the transmission and ill need to start sorting the funds for another transmission in the near future as this may potentially be my warning sign. thankfully a transmission swap is about a half day job... but I dont just want to Bust Out Another Thousand until I actually need to.
does this sound like symptoms of worn out synchronizers, I always see golden glitter when draining the fluid (photo above at a 50k mile fluid change interval). ive replaced shift forks internally in other standard transmissions, so I know internally what they look like.. just not so much on how exactly transmissions function.
Im considering switching over to redline as the transmission lubricant to see if I get any clearing up of the stickiness but am unsure as to whether or not I need the redline MTL or MT-90 as I see suggestions for MTL and others correcting with MT-90 and vice versa. which specific one do I need for the NV3550, pretty sure some sort of GL-4 spec?
03 wrangler 6CYL, 204k miles, original NV3550 transmission.
when the jeep was initially purchased a few years back with ~140k miles, I had drained the transmission "fluid" which was red. was a very thin viscosity but looked identical to ATF. no shifting issues were present at the time but was done as one of them "who knows what the previous owner had done". I went with Pennzoil synchromesh for the replacement fluid with the Chrysler manual trans fluid spec number MS-9224 printed on the label.
about 50k miles of perfectly fine shifting and no problems otherwise.
earlier this year I decided it was time to replace the fluid in the transmission and again went with the pennzoil syncromesh with the same MS-9224 fluid spec. its been about 5k miles'ish estimated and just the past few weeks ive been having intermittent difficulty downshifting to the following gear while decelerating on highway exit ramps after about 20 minutes of 75mph driving.
Im at 204k miles on the original transmission, its behaving perfectly fine other than the occasional sticky downshifts observed these past few weeks. and to clarify.. by sticky, I mean ill be grabbing ahold of the shifter and casually attempt to shift out of gear but am blocked from doing so and ill attempt to shift again and its fine like nothing is wrong.
could happen at any point too. could be going from 5th to 4th and it sticks once but is fine after reattempting to shift. or I could downshift out of 5th working down the gears and 3rd gear decides to stick but then fine thereafter.
I have looked through the NV3550 factory manual and found sticky shifting listed as a potential low fluid level possibility but honestly I havent yet crawled under to inspect if oil has been vaporizing as I see no leaks whatsoever otherwise.
Im suspicious I am coming close to EOL for the transmission and ill need to start sorting the funds for another transmission in the near future as this may potentially be my warning sign. thankfully a transmission swap is about a half day job... but I dont just want to Bust Out Another Thousand until I actually need to.
does this sound like symptoms of worn out synchronizers, I always see golden glitter when draining the fluid (photo above at a 50k mile fluid change interval). ive replaced shift forks internally in other standard transmissions, so I know internally what they look like.. just not so much on how exactly transmissions function.
Im considering switching over to redline as the transmission lubricant to see if I get any clearing up of the stickiness but am unsure as to whether or not I need the redline MTL or MT-90 as I see suggestions for MTL and others correcting with MT-90 and vice versa. which specific one do I need for the NV3550, pretty sure some sort of GL-4 spec?
