was this bad?

[Joseph Helwig]

I have a GS1000G.

When I changed the final drive oil, it was not gear oil, but auto transmission oil (very light, and very red in colour).

How bad is this for the bike? Anything I should look out for?

BTW, I put in 70W140 Synthetic.

Thanks

[tkent02]

I guess you need to hope it wasn't run long, or hard, or in hot weather.
It will probably be OK, unless it fails. :-)

[bwringer]

You didn't mention chunks of metal, so it'll be fine.

The correct gear oil weight is 90W, but that's hard to find. 75W-90 or 80W-90 is fine, but 70-140 is too thick.

[Joseph Helwig]

What should I look out for?

I t was driven for at least a year (15k km) like this.

I just got the bike, but I bought it from a friend who did no maintenance to it.

[bwringer]

Just ride it for a while (couple hundred miles, maybe?) with the correct gear oil, change it again, and if there are still no metal chunks in the drained gear oil, forget it ever happened.

I seriously doubt anything was damaged -- those gears are pretty tough, and ATF is not a bad gear lube, really. Lots of manual transmissions in cars specify ATF instead of gear oil.

If the ATF was still somewhat red/pink, it wasn't in there long enough to hurt anything anyway.

[Shaughn]

Just ride it for a while (couple hundred miles, maybe?) with the correct gear oil, change it again, and if there are still no metal chunks in the drained gear oil, forget it ever happened.

I seriously doubt anything was damaged -- those gears are pretty tough, and ATF is not a bad gear lube, really. Lots of manual transmissions in cars specify ATF instead of gear oil.

If the ATF was still somewhat red/pink, it wasn't in there long enough to hurt anything anyway.

Yeah, the manual T5 transmission in my 4x4 S10 spec'd ATF in the transmission, and with four axles spinning 31" tires, it certaintly got its share of loading without problems. Take Bwringer's advice and you should be good to go.

[NetBSD]

i dount it did any harm, 60% of trucks use ATF in the transfercase and some in the manual trannies not to mention someone had ATf in my 78 f150 np435 tranny and i ran it for 2 years liek that. do as said above and run it for a few weeks then change it again to remove all leftover ATF and call it good, bhut if you feel liek it you could rip it all apart and clean it all up by hand and inspect everything

[psyguy]

bhut if you feel liek it you could rip it all apart and clean it all up by hand and inspect everything

no, not really... heaps of special tools needed

[Matchless]

Your magnetic drain plug will give you the best answer. I assume you intend rather replacing it with the prescribed oil soon!

[Dogma]

Gears in a gearbox are designed to work with a particular amount of lubrication. You could run enough power through a gearbox with WD-40 in it to push a ship if the gears are designed for it. Larger gearboxes that run ATF are not necessarily an indication that ATF can substitue for gear oil.

But I do agree that the final drive gears are very robust. Just the other day, I rode by a parked M109R, and I noticed the final drive looked very familiar. That's a lot more power going through than we can generate. But I'm assuming that the bigger bike is actually using all it's power. Superslab power consumption is probably about the same as whet you're doing, maybe a little more for the fat tires. Heavy acceleration is the most demanding load on the final drive, and you can't do that all the time. 51%, tops...

I think Matchless has the real answer though.

[BentRod]

I really doubt that you have chipped anything or will get shards of metal. run the bike and chagne the oil soon.
The most likely damage i can think of is simply excessive wear from the incorrect oil not being able to do the job. to rectify this, advance the final drive maintenance schedual, Ie inspect it earlier than prescribed in your manual.

[rphillips]

Couldn't imagine anything to worry about. As said, many gear driven transmissions & gearboxes use ATF. You would rather it hadn't happened, but I wouldn't worry about it. Now, If it gives a problem 20,000 mi down the road, you can always wonder if this was the cause, OR NOT.

[Planecrazy]

Has anybody even seen a final drive fail? I've never heard anybody mention this problem, at least not on a stock bike. I'll echo Brian's (BWringer) sentiment that you put the correct fluid in there, watch for metal shavings, and if you don't see them forget there was ever a different fluid in there...

Regards,