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Don't Forget The Gear Oil
Maintaining a vehicle requires
the use of many lubricants, each specifically designed to
perform a certain task or set of tasks. The most common lubricant
requiring routine attention from motorists is engine oil.
Gear oil, on the other hand, is often-times overlooked when
it comes to scheduled maintenance.
Gear Oil Basics
High quality gear oils must lubricate, cool and protect geared
systems. They must also carry damaging wear debris away from
contact zones and muffle the sound of gear operation. Commonly
used in differential gears and standard transmission applications
in commercial and passenger vehicles, as well as a variety
of industrial machinery, gear oils must offer extreme temperature
and pressure protection in order to prevent wear, pitting,
spalling, scoring, scuffing and other types of damage that
result in equipment failure and downtime. Protection against
oxidation, thermal degradation, rust, copper corrosion and
foaming is also important.
Gear Oil and Motor
Oil are Not the Same
Gear oil is very different from motor oil. Most people assume
that SAE 90 gear oil is much thicker than SAE 40 or 50 motor
oil, however, they are the same viscosity. According to AMSOIL
Technical Drivetrain Products Manager Kevin Dinwiddie, the
difference is in the additives.
“Motor oil has to combat
byproduct chemicals from gasoline or diesel ignition and should
contain additives such as detergents and dispersants,”
said Dinwiddie. “Since an internal combustion engine
has an oil pump and lubricates the bearings with a hydrodynamic
film, the need for extreme pressure additives such as those
used in gear oils does not exist in engines.”
Engine oils and gear oils both
have anti-wear additives, they both must lubricate, cool and
protect components, but gear oils are placed under extreme
amounts of pressure, creating a propensity for boundary lubrication.
For example, differentials in cars and trucks have a ring
and pinion hypoid gear set. A hypoid gear set can experience
boundary lubrication, pressures and sliding action that can
wipe most of the lubricant off the gears. To combat this extreme
environment, extreme pressure additives are incorporated into
the oil. AMSOIL uses an extra treat of extreme pressure additives
in its gear oils in order to reduce wear and extend the gear
and bearing life.
Additional Differences
Because many of the components found in the drivetrain consist
of ferrous material, the lubricant is required to prevent
rust and possible corrosion to other materials. Rust and corrosion
problems are not nearly as prevalent in engines.
The many small and intricate
components that make up gear sets found in the drivetrain
can be quite noisy and may be subjected to shock loading.
The viscosity and extreme pressure formulation of gear oil
quiets gears and dissipates shock loading.
The rotating motion of the gear
sets also tends to churn the lubricant, resulting in foaming.
If a gear lube foams, the load carrying capacity is significantly
reduced because the air suspended within the oil is compressible.
For example, when the gear teeth come into contact with each
other any trapped air bubbles will compress, therefore reducing
the thickness of the separating oil film. In turn, this reduction
could lead to direct metal-to-metal contact between gear teeth
and result in accelerated wear. The gear oil must have the
ability to dissipate this entrapped air, insuring sufficient
lubricating film exists to protect the gears from contact
wear.
Typical Drivetrain Fluid
Additives
Much like engine oil, the chemical compounds, or
additives, added to drivetrain stocks either enhance existing
properties or impart new ones. Some of the additives that
may be found in a drivetrain fluid include:
- Extreme pressure and/or
antiwear agents - These additives are used to minimize component
wear in boundary lubrication situations.
- Pour point depressants -
This type of additive is used to improve low temperature
performance.
- Rust and corrosion inhibitors
- These are used to protect internal components.
- Oxidation inhibitors - These
additives are used to reduce the deteriorating effects of
heat on the lubricant which will increase the lubricant’s
service life.
- Viscosity index improvers
- These allow a lubricant to operate over a broader temperature
range.
- Anti-foam agents - The churning
effects of gears running in oil causes a foaming effect
in the oil. To reduce the harmful effects of air trapped
in a lubricant, anti-foam additives speed the separation
process.
- Friction modifiers - The
required degree of friction reduction can vary significantly
between differing pieces of equipment in drivetrain applications.
In some cases, friction modifiers may be required to obtain
the desired results.
Gear Design Dictates
Lube Design
Gear designs vary depending on the requirements for rotation
speed, degree of gear reduction and torque loading. Transmissions
commonly use spur gears, while hypoid gear designs are usually
employed as the main gearing in differentials. Common gear
types include:
Spur
Spur (straight cut) gears are widely used in parallel shaft
applications, such as transmissions, due to their low cost
and high efficiency. The design allows for the entire gear
tooth to make contact with the tooth face at the same instant.
As a result, this type of gearing tends to be subjected to
high shock loading and uneven motion. Design limitations include
excessive noise and a significant amount of backlash during
high-speed operation.
Bevel
Bevel gears (straight and spiral cut) transmit motion between
shafts that are at an angle to each other. Primarily found
in various types of industrial equipment as well as some automotive
applications (differentials), they offer efficient operation
and are easy to manufacture. As with spur gears, they are
limited due to their noisy operation at high speeds, and are
not the top choice where load carrying capacity is a requirement.
Worm
Worm gear sets employ a specially-machined “worm”
that conforms to the arc of the driven gear. This type of
design increases torque throughput, improves accuracy and
extends operating life. Primarily used to transmit power through
non-intersecting shafts, this style of gear is frequently
found in gear reduction boxes as they offer quiet operation
and high ratios (as high as 100:1). Downfalls with this type
of gear set are its efficiency, high price per HP and low
ratios (5:1 minimum).
Hypoid
Hypoid gear sets are a form of bevel gears, but offer improved
efficiency and higher ratios over traditional straight bevel
gears. Commonly found in axle differentials, hypoid gears
are used to transmit power from the driveline to the axle
shafts.
Planetary
Planetary gear sets, such as those found in automatic
transmissions, provide the different gear ratios needed to
propel a vehicle in the desired direction at the correct speed.
Gear teeth remain in constant mesh, which allows for gear
changes to be made without engaging or disengaging the gears,
as is required in a manual transmission. Instead, clutches
and bands are used to either hold or release different members
of the gear set to get the proper direction of rotation and/or
gear ratio.
Helical
Helical gears differ from spur gears in that their teeth are
not parallel to the shaft axis; they are cut in a helix or
angle around the gear axis. During rotation, parts of several
teeth may be in mesh at the same time, which reduces some
of the loading characteristics of the standard spur gear.
However, this style of gearing can produce thrust forces parallel
to the axis of the gear shaft. To minimize the effects, two
helical gears with teeth opposite each other are utilized,
which helps to cancel the thrust out during operation.
Herringbone
Herringbone gears are an improvement over the double helical
gear design. Both right and left hand cuts are used on the
same gear blank, which cancels out any thrust forces. Herringbone
gears are capable of transmitting large amounts of horsepower
and are frequently used in power transmission systems.
The differences in gear design
create the need for significantly different lubrication designs.
For instance, gears normally seen in automotive differentials
are hypoid gears and require GL-5 concentration and performance
of extreme pressure additives.
“This is because of the
spiral sliding action that hypoid gears have,” said
Dinwiddie.
Most manual transmissions have
helical gears and do not require GL-5 performance.
“The helical gear is almost
a straight cut gear, but on an angle,” said Dinwiddie.
“There is spiral action and very little sliding action,
hence there is less need for extreme pressure additives.”
Gl-4 gear lubes have half of
the extreme pressure additives of GL-5 lubes.
AMSOIL Provides Gear
Oil Options
AMSOIL carries drivetrain lubricants to meet nearly
any application. The synthetic base stocks and top-quality
additive packages found in AMSOIL gear
lubes and transmission
fluids provide the ultimate in wear protection for cars,
trucks, outboards, differentials, heavy-duty and racing applications.
Which
AMSOIL Products Are Recommended For Your Car or Truck?
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