ATF as Gear Lube

[BushPig]

I've blown quite a few gearboxes on different brands of bike to smithereens over the years.  One gearbox had been treated with Slick50, two others were running Bel-Ray Gear Saver, another was using some expensive Castrol 2-stroke gearbox specific stuff, a couple were running motor oil as per the bike manufacturers specs.  NONE were running ATF......  Add to this that I've run ATF on and off for years and I'd have to say that ATF is no more likely to cause problems than any other lube. 

When you consider that ATF is inexpensive, readily available, seems to provide unrivalled clutch and gearbox action, AND it gets run in the gearboxes of machines that pump out many times more torque and hp than what we're playing with I reckon it's good enough for me.  Sorry, but I don't buy the Snake Oil salemen's hype and the marketing that goes on.

Change it often just like you should with any other gearbox oil and keep the money you saved to spend on beer and chicks... (unless the wife confiscates it first).

Bushy

[k5abuser]

Never use atf of any kind.  It will. Allow the gears to could them self to the shafts. Kawasaki says to use 30 at motor oil. If your motor is apart polish the channels. For the shift forks a.d the shift forks their eels and run slick 50 though.  Best to use old clutch while the slick 500 is in the bottomend.  The bike wil shift like never before.  Sometimes to easy. I've seen bikes with atf run in the bottomend and if it makes a lot of hp or is run hard all the time u will have proublem.

DO what to the shift fork eels?

Polish the shift forks to take the sharp edge off. Sorry 7 day in a row and 12 hour days wear me out.

[2-Stroke Tom]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on running ATF in their gearbox. If someone is happy with the performance of ATF in their gearbox, and they have had good success with reliability, then they should keep using it.

The perspective I take on running ATF is that it has been around long before the KX500 came along, and if the engineers that designed these transmissions would've thought that there was any advantage to running ATF, I would think they would've recommended it. Additionally if running ATF in the KX500 would increase the mean time between failures, I'm sure the factory race teams would've run this in the bikes racing the Baja 1000. A professional racer racing these bikes in the heat for a 1000 miles is tough on parts, and most peoples machine will never endure these conditions. With the racing community I used to be involved with it was common practice for a lot of us to race two to three times a month, some months racking up 300 to 400 off road between practice and racing, and gearbox problems were extremely rare. I didn't know anyone running ATF. 

[martinfan30]

Never use atf of any kind.  It will. Allow the gears to could them self to the shafts. Kawasaki says to use 30 at motor oil. If your motor is apart polish the channels. For the shift forks a.d the shift forks their eels and run slick 50 though.  Best to use old clutch while the slick 500 is in the bottomend.  The bike wil shift like never before.  Sometimes to easy. I've seen bikes with atf run in the bottomend and if it makes a lot of hp or is run hard all the time u will have proublem.

DO what to the shift fork eels?

Polish the shift forks to take the sharp edge off. Sorry 7 day in a row and 12 hour days wear me out.

No prob man, I knew there was something there. Was just trying to get it. I know how the long hours wear on a guy.

[bigtwin100]

Read thru all this and I'm going to give the ATF a try. I'll post up my results

[sniper1]

        I read all 9 pages and I see a lot of focus on cost but changing the atf everytime you ride even at $1.99 compared to the recommended oil changed every 4th or 5th ride seems like a push on a $10 quart of recommended oil.

        I have to ask how many factory teams are using atf because it seems that they would want the best in their machines as often as they are on the clutch.

        I just had to ask and am only asking because I never had any problems with a clutch or how smooth my bikes shifted and I've owned 2 K5s with no issues with my 3rd being picked up tomorrow so I am getting my ducks in a row on what is new and what is best in the world of K5s

        With all these oil changes one of these might be in order just kidding.

http://www.fumotousa.com/
       

[bigtwin100]

Paying $10 for a quart of any oil is obsurd.

[sniper1]

         I have to agree with you there big.

[Motorrad]

Paying $10 for a quart of any oil is obsurd.

Your right.. I pay  nearly $14..  I wont even scare you with the price of my 2T oil..
No i dont buy it from them. I get it localy at a price break....

http://www.denniskirk.com/jsp/product_catalog/Product.jsp?skuId=304667&store=&catId=&productId=p304667&leafCatId=&mmyId=

http://www.denniskirk.com/jsp/product_catalog/Product.jsp?skuId=304665&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cse


ATF belongs in Automatic Trannys...

[DoldGuy]

Nothing Good is Cheap.....................and ............Nothing Cheap is Good 



You can save some Pennies only to learn it cost some Presidents 

[maddoggy]

This has been an interesting thread.
I have never tried ATF.
I have disassembled hundreds if not thousands of dirt bikes.
I have seen ATF to the newest synthetics and everything in between.
The bikes that come in that are clean and the air filters clean seem to be clean on the inside as well, regardless what is used as a lubricant.
The bikes that come in with caked on, baked on who knows what, with a air filter that looks like it was used as a chew toy for a pack of Rottweilers in a mud pit... typically they are very nasty on the inside.
True, the ATF bikes are very clean on the inside, usually a little cleaner than the more conventional lubed bikes.
Below is a pic of a YZ125 we were working on today that ATF was used in.
We haven't done any cleaning.
What you see is what it looks like immediately after the ATF was drained and the engine was disassembled.

The bike was true to form for a well maintained bike.
Yet, as far as gear wear.... I have seen no real difference between ATF and any other lube.
What seems to be the biggest factor to gear wear is the gear lube not being changed often enough.
The second thing we see is poor shifting habits.
So, what ever you use, change it often and pull your clutch lever all the way in, shift the bike in a positive manor, and then let your clutch out.
Your bike will live long and prosper 

i would venture to guess that not many of us have handled as many bikes as sandblaster has. his eyes have seen it all. if atf is good enough to run in a high torque transfer case on a 4 wd then it is good enough to run for a few hours in my bike. i have been running this oil since i've owned my k5 and have seen no ill effects. i honestly change oil after 2 good hard rides, or about 8 hours.

[Motorrad]

No offence to that picture, you, or sandblaster... As im not trying to argue, just pointing one thing out....,.. And that is... That photo proves nothing... It doesnt show were the K5 trannys wear...

You could have been running Laquor thinner, bleach, Canola oil.. etc and that case would still look like that... ..
(Bleach will actually out perform most oils in the Bearing load test)


Got to watch the Car trannys etc that run it... alot of them, the gears are cut differant...   

And as a point many have brought up...   Woods guys, low miles guys, will never have an issue with ATF...   

I have yet to meet a desert racer that runs it...  me included...
Think Tom Put it best...   

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on running ATF in their gearbox. If someone is happy with the performance of ATF in their gearbox, and they have had good success with reliability, then they should keep using it.

The perspective I take on running ATF is that it has been around long before the KX500 came along, and if the engineers that designed these transmissions would've thought that there was any advantage to running ATF, I would think they would've recommended it. Additionally if running ATF in the KX500 would increase the mean time between failures, I'm sure the factory race teams would've run this in the bikes racing the Baja 1000. A professional racer racing these bikes in the heat for a 1000 miles is tough on parts, and most peoples machine will never endure these conditions. With the racing community I used to be involved with it was common practice for a lot of us to race two to three times a month, some months racking up 300 to 400 off road between practice and racing, and gearbox problems were extremely rare. I didn't know anyone running ATF. 

[don46]

This has been an interesting thread.
I have never tried ATF.
I have disassembled hundreds if not thousands of dirt bikes.
I have seen ATF to the newest synthetics and everything in between.
The bikes that come in that are clean and the air filters clean seem to be clean on the inside as well, regardless what is used as a lubricant.
The bikes that come in with caked on, baked on who knows what, with a air filter that looks like it was used as a chew toy for a pack of Rottweilers in a mud pit... typically they are very nasty on the inside.
True, the ATF bikes are very clean on the inside, usually a little cleaner than the more conventional lubed bikes.
Below is a pic of a YZ125 we were working on today that ATF was used in.
We haven't done any cleaning.
What you see is what it looks like immediately after the ATF was drained and the engine was disassembled.

The bike was true to form for a well maintained bike.
Yet, as far as gear wear.... I have seen no real difference between ATF and any other lube.
What seems to be the biggest factor to gear wear is the gear lube not being changed often enough.
The second thing we see is poor shifting habits.
So, what ever you use, change it often and pull your clutch lever all the way in, shift the bike in a positive manor, and then let your clutch out.
Your bike will live long and prosper 

i would venture to guess that not many of us have handled as many bikes as sandblaster has. his eyes have seen it all. if atf is good enough to run in a high torque transfer case on a 4 wd then it is good enough to run for a few hours in my bike. i have been running this oil since i've owned my k5 and have seen no ill effects. i honestly change oil after 2 good hard rides, or about 8 hours.

Seriously, if the inside of my motor looked like that I would be concerned. I use Redline Gear saver, and sim months later the stuff is still everywhere it does not run off. I never got on the ATF band wagon and probably never will, if a person is a casual rider you can get away with it, but I think if you are truly using the bike you need something better than ATF. We run extended length, paddle tires and sometimes bolts with Nitrous so we want what will hold up and I don't think its ATF. in the late 90's early 2000's we ran many outdoor nationals and I can tell you that is abuse. I think if most people paid as much attention to their shocks as they do the tranny's they would love there bikes more, shock oil breaks down quickly, there is a suprising amount of heat generated by the friction of the componenets, hey maybe we should use ATF in the shock

[maddoggy]

No offence to that picture, you, or sandblaster... As im not trying to argue, just pointing one thing out....,.. And that is... That photo proves nothing... It doesnt show were the K5 trannys wear...

You could have been running Laquor thinner, bleach, Canola oil.. etc and that case would still look like that... ..
(Bleach will actually out perform most oils in the Bearing load test)


Got to watch the Car trannys etc that run it... alot of them, the gears are cut differant...   

And as a point many have brought up...   Woods guys, low miles guys, will never have an issue with ATF...   

I have yet to meet a desert racer that runs it...  me included...
Think Tom Put it best...   

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on running ATF in their gearbox. If someone is happy with the performance of ATF in their gearbox, and they have had good success with reliability, then they should keep using it.

The perspective I take on running ATF is that it has been around long before the KX500 came along, and if the engineers that designed these transmissions would've thought that there was any advantage to running ATF, I would think they would've recommended it. Additionally if running ATF in the KX500 would increase the mean time between failures, I'm sure the factory race teams would've run this in the bikes racing the Baja 1000. A professional racer racing these bikes in the heat for a 1000 miles is tough on parts, and most peoples machine will never endure these conditions. With the racing community I used to be involved with it was common practice for a lot of us to race two to three times a month, some months racking up 300 to 400 off road between practice and racing, and gearbox problems were extremely rare. I didn't know anyone running ATF. 

are you serious? gears in a car are cut different? i had no idea.

[Motorrad]

No offence to that picture, you, or sandblaster... As im not trying to argue, just pointing one thing out....,.. And that is... That photo proves nothing... It doesnt show were the K5 trannys wear...

You could have been running Laquor thinner, bleach, Canola oil.. etc and that case would still look like that... ..
(Bleach will actually out perform most oils in the Bearing load test)


Got to watch the Car trannys etc that run it... alot of them, the gears are cut differant...   

And as a point many have brought up...   Woods guys, low miles guys, will never have an issue with ATF...   

I have yet to meet a desert racer that runs it...  me included...
Think Tom Put it best...   

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on running ATF in their gearbox. If someone is happy with the performance of ATF in their gearbox, and they have had good success with reliability, then they should keep using it.

The perspective I take on running ATF is that it has been around long before the KX500 came along, and if the engineers that designed these transmissions would've thought that there was any advantage to running ATF, I would think they would've recommended it. Additionally if running ATF in the KX500 would increase the mean time between failures, I'm sure the factory race teams would've run this in the bikes racing the Baja 1000. A professional racer racing these bikes in the heat for a 1000 miles is tough on parts, and most peoples machine will never endure these conditions. With the racing community I used to be involved with it was common practice for a lot of us to race two to three times a month, some months racking up 300 to 400 off road between practice and racing, and gearbox problems were extremely rare. I didn't know anyone running ATF. 

are you serious? gears in a car are cut different? i had no idea.

Why do you think thre is Hypoid oil, HP oil, and regular gear oil...    The way the gear Wipes across itself changes the way the oil works....  Minor changes to gear tooth profile does alot of things.

My Old triumphs need HP oil, because they will wipe themselfs clean if you ran anything else.. so the Higher pressure aditives are needed to keep some film strength there..

Im leaving to go to the desert In 10min... when I get back, Ill take some HIGH REZ pictures of a old triumph gear, vs a K5 gear.... Lots of differances in tooth profile..