Noob with BA10/5 question

I bought my 87 XJ just about a month ago, it is a Pioneer model with a very nice and clean exterior and interior, but just at 200,000 miles and cheap.

Bought it from the widder down the street who got it from her college student grandson after she GAVE him a Lexus (I asked her if she would be my gramma too).

It's just a replacement work rig for me (which I also will use for household projects and when adventuring in the woods - dirt roads & passable trails, no rocks), bought to replace a 454 Suburban that I used for the same purposes (fuel bill noticeably improved).

It is all stock, and seems to have been treated well, there are no dents, gouges, or scrapes on the underside, not even the front skid plate. Engine is smooth and quiet, only clicking I hear is the fuel nozzles.

I have been working at the little defects it has, most fairly minor. Idle speed seemed high, and washing out the engine compartment made that worse (manual was helpful there, it WAS the TPS that I killed). I just bought one at the nearest wrecking yard yesterday, plus a bag of other spare sensors & relays and all the misc trim parts I wanted to change, all for the most reasonable sum of ten bucks.

A/C won't come on. Comp clutch getting no power, not a blown fuse. See a relay someone has put in the circuit to the clutch, just hooked up with some spade connectors and wrapped up in black tape & stuffed behind the battery. I'll clean that up when I have time and I suspect that will fix the A/C.

Cruise doesn't work. Again, not a blown fuse, but not my highest priority and I'll get to it later.

Cooling system had obviously boiled over recently, and the system contained only plain water. Radiator was brand spanking shiny black new (and not updated to the open style durn it). Not overheating in the 85-95 weather we've been having the past month, and all hoses look good. Did a quick flush and refilled with a batch of Dexcool and a vial of Bars Leaks Goldseal. Pressure bottle is staying dry for the time being but I needed to tighten the cap a bit more than I think it should have been in order to get it to stay that way. I'll soon get a new cap and clean up the roughness in the mating surface on the bottle. Serpentine belt looks real tired so I'll change that out too.

Stereo is a fancy Jensen unit with a 90 X 4 Alpine amp in the back, about the size of two bricks, all driving factory stock speakers. I'm more of an AM talk radio guy so I'll probably downgrade that to a more basic player, and my wife has called dibs on the fancy stuff for her Aerostar (she is "decorating" her van and she says the colors of the Jensen's display are just right - figger women will ya?).

Battery cables are crappy, terminals barely stay on the posts and corrosion has crept down the cables too far, plus the B+ lead to the main relay is about half scraped through. I'll build some good 4/0 cables with the stuff I have in my heavy equipment dealership parts dept (where I work - and yes I'll pay for the stuff, but not retail).

Power door locks seem weak, the driver door solenoid doesn't quite have the power to lock the doors, the others work most of the time. I think the battery cable fix will fix that, so I'm not all that concerned.

Parking brake weak. Cable loose enough that the lever pulls up on the stupid cupholder (which doesn't neem to hold any standard sized cup). Probably just worn rear brakes. I'll soon pop the drums off the (D44) rear and have a look.

Transmission is (yup) a BA10/5. Don't need to say a lot more except I know it is getting tired. It is the only thing underneath that is covered in leaked oil, and before today the 2-3 shift needed to be done very slowly to avoid grinding (but overall the transmission is not real noisy). Made a tool today and dumped out about 1-1/2 pints of some very thin oil of unknown type. The magnet plug had a little more fur on it than I like, but I have seen a lot worse. The oil itself, however, held a lot of brass in suspension, so I think it is safe to assume it has some very worn syncros. I refilled with some regular Walmart 80-90 GL-5, and I'll go easy on it for a couple weeks and dump it out & see what I get. The new oil fixed the 2-3 and 3-4 shifts, but now the 1-2 and 2-1 shifts are tough, where they were smooth before. I'm looking for some guidance on this one. I'm thinking I could do better on the oil. I know the manual calls for 75-90 GL-5 but I'm not convinced that's the best thing for this transmission and I'd like to try to finish the season out with it. I've just about convinced myself that this gearbox is crying for a fill of 50W synthetic.

Next year I WILL be towing a trailer into the woods and I know I'll have to swap out to an AX-15 or better to do that. In the meantime, I don't want the pug-ott to scatter, and I'm hoping good oil and kindness will preserve it.

Don't abuse it and that tranny will last you for a long time. I have the original BA10/5 in my '88. I'm at 242,000 miles.

The 1-2 and 2-1 shifts are rough. This is characteristic of the tranny ... mine has been that way since it was new. I didn't eliminate the problem, but it got better when I added a shot of "Gear Moly" -- a molybdenum disulphide lube additive I got from J.C. Whitney. JCW no longer carries the stuff, but do a Google on "Mr. Moly" -- you'll come up with a company that sells a similar product. Since reading about the sulpher-bearing compounds in GL-5 lube attacking brass synchronizers I'm concerned about putting sulpher into my BA10/5. Mopar tech line still says to use the 75-90 GL-5 gear lube, but Mr. Moly has a version for use in limited slips and automatic trannies that's moly without the disulphide. That's what I'll use the next time I change out the lube in the tranny.

Thanks for the info I'll give that a whirl. I figured on re-changing the oil in a couple weeks, the stuff I took out was nasty so hopefully another drain will clean out most of the metal & gunk that was surely still inside - second time should be easier now that I got those plugs broken loose that were so seriously overtightened (never have figured out why people do that).

Do you think it would benefit at all to go synthetic on the gear oil though?

It has been suggested by a number of different sources that synthetic makes the shifts smoother. But it has also been suggested that most of the synthetics (I think it was Redline that was the exception, not sure) are very high in sulpher content, so I've never pursued it.

I've had mine since January of 1988, so I have adapted my driving to fit the tranny. It's a Jeep, not a GTO, so no slam shifts. It's not bad in summer. When the weather gets cold, I just plan ahead for my first few shifts. I shift from 1 to 2 at a much slower speed/lower RPM than normal, take my time with the shift, and it works okay. If I'm starting on a downgrade when cold, I start in 2nd gear. Even in warm weather, my usual shift point is around 2000 to 2200 RPM, but the 1-2 shift is between 1200 and 1500. Any higher and it bangs or grinds. BTW, I'm a certified Olde Pharte, so I grew up on manual trannies. My grandfather taught me to always double-clutch on downshifts, and I still do. That helps as well, especially on the 2-1 downshifts.

Eagle said:

Don't abuse it and that tranny will last you for a long time. I have the original BA10/5 in my '88. I'm at 242,000 miles.

The 1-2 and 2-1 shifts are rough. This is characteristic of the tranny ... mine has been that way since it was new. I didn't eliminate the problem, but it got better when I added a shot of "Gear Moly" -- a molybdenum disulphide lube additive I got from J.C. Whitney. JCW no longer carries the stuff, but do a Google on "Mr. Moly" -- you'll come up with a company that sells a similar product. Since reading about the sulpher-bearing compounds in GL-5 lube attacking brass synchronizers I'm concerned about putting sulpher into my BA10/5. Mopar tech line still says to use the 75-90 GL-5 gear lube, but Mr. Moly has a version for use in limited slips and automatic trannies that's moly without the disulphide. That's what I'll use the next time I change out the lube in the tranny.

Click to expand...

when i firs sterted working in a dealership, it was a peugeot dealer. when we serviced the transmissions we used motor oil 10 w 30 i think. i know it doesnt say to do this in the jeep manuals, but i dont see why it wouldnt work in a jep. never tried it in a jeep though because i would have to take responsibility for my actions if it could be proven failure due to wron lubricant.

jneary said:

when i firs sterted working in a dealership, it was a peugeot dealer. when we serviced the transmissions we used motor oil 10 w 30 i think. i know it doesnt say to do this in the jeep manuals, but i dont see why it wouldnt work in a jep. never tried it in a jeep though because i would have to take responsibility for my actions if it could be proven failure due to wron lubricant.

Click to expand...

The new manual tranny lube they sell in the parts stores (the one in the yellow bottles, I don't recall the brand) has NO GL rating, and the manufacturer's engineers say it isn't for the BA10/5 or the AX-15, only the NV3550 and 4500 trannies. However, if you can use motor oil in a Peugeot tranny, what do you think of the idea of using this aftermarket synchromesh juice with some of Mr. Moly's non-sulpher molybdenum additive to increase the extreme pressure capabilities?

i'm not a lubrication specialist and i'm not sure i would want to be a guinnea pig. i'll stick with what it says in the owners manual, its safer for me that way.

Pugeot... uke:

Good idea to swap in an AX-15 before you pull that trailer.

assgas: I had a poop-jo in my old 88 YJ. 1-2 started getting tough, soon after it gave it up. $900 to fix w/ a new first gear.

Lose that frenchy piece of junk ASAP. My opinions alone.

Thanks for all the replies.
I have, for quite a while, thought of 75W/90 and 80W/90 gear oil as kind of an old school lubricant for manual transmissions, especially when looking at the smaller parts in the newer 5 and 6 speed manuals. Even my old S-10 truck with it's little T4 calls for ATF for it's lube, and though I always thought the box was a little noisy with ATF it has held up fine for a couple hundred thousand. I know other manufacturers that used that same box call for a more traditional gear oil but Chevy did eat some of those trannies behind the puny little 2.8 (mine is a 2.0 4 banger) so maybe the call for ATF is a response to that. I know different modern truck manuals call for various weights of gear oil, but almost exclusively synthetic.

It was impossible to tell what the oil was I drained out of this Jeep I bought, but it was very thin and there was only about a quart, maybe less. There was a little iron on the magnet plug, but the oil held in suspension a lot of brass. I suspect this Jeep was run for a while with a bad clutch release mechanism, the tubes coming out of the flywheel housing are obviously shiny and new. Could be all the brass relates to some clutch-less driving, I'm not sure, maybe will know more when I dump it out again.

I understand Jeep frowned on pulling much of any extra weight with those transmissions. My Jeep has a full size class III hitch hanging under the back end, and I intend to make some use of it, but that will be next year and I will have selected and installed a more suitable replacement by then. The going rate for an AX15 at the local wrecker is about $450.00, and while that's cheaper than I have seen at a lot of places, it's still more than I want to spend right now when the other suggested and required mods are added in. My aim for now is just to make this tired old box last until I have gathered up all that is needed to do it in the dead of next winter when the weather is too crappy to do the fun stuff(I have a large heated shop at my disposal).

I know that everyone says to upgrade the tranny when it goes bad (that's my plan, if/when mine goes), but if you just want to replace the Pig-out with another Pig-out there is a fellow in a 4wd club I belong to who reported today (or yesterday) that he has a BA10/5 laying around (I think he and it are both in the Portland area). If you're interested, let me know and I'll try to find his email that mentioned the tranny.

Dale

If you're not confused enough, I suggest that you also read this thread:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2811&page=1