What type/weight differential fluid should use in my 260E? Owners Manual tells me to use "Mercedes Benz..." yeah yeah yeah, but nothing about proper weight. Hypoid or non-hypoid? Thanks Dale

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1995 W124 Wagon

You need regular cheap 80w90 gear oil, MB filled it with industrial weight SAE 90 gear oil which you wont find easily.

SAE 80W90 GL5 regular cheap gear oil is the best for these. - All these diffs are hypoid (angular contact gears) and your small one would take about 1.1 qt of it - use a pump to fill it. as usual remove filler first then drain bolt.

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2012 BMW X5 (Beef + Granite suspension model)

1995 E300D - The original humming machine (consumed by Flood 2017)
2000 E320 - The evolution (consumed by flood 2017)

Oops

I didn't even THINK of that as I was working on replacing the sub frame control arms and am planning to do the diff mounts so I went ahead and drained it, early on in the process. I've shot penetrating oil onto the fill plug area and letting it soak...

Wish me well

Dale

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1995 W124 Wagon

As stated, any 80W-90 GL-5. Brand makes no difference... just make sure the bottle has the API "donut" with the afore mentioned information.

Mercedes recommended a "break-in" axle oil change at about 1200 miles as I recall. Being as how I am a DIYer I chose to do it myself and bought the special tool to remove the fill and drain plugs. The owner's manual specified a 85W-90 oil, but all I could find was 80W-90. I finally got a Pennzoil product number from the dealer and contacted Pennzoil. They said that that product was not sold in North America. Sheesh! Thanks DB for recommending a product for USA cars that is not sold here.

After all this I finally concluded that 80W-90 GL-5, which has an EP additive for hypoid gears was quite satisfactory. Mercedes hypoid axles are basically the same technology as those used in domestic cars, and there is no need for a "special" oil other than an ounce or two of common clutch type limited slip anti-chatter additive that you can buy from NAPA and most other parts stores for models with clutch-type LSDs like the 190E 2.3-16.

Then I had to wrestle with the manual transmission oil spec, which is SAE 20W-20 non-detergent oil. Try finding that product. After going around and around I found out that ATF was okay to use, and decided to splurge and bought Redline MTL synthetic that has the same gear oil "weight" as ATF, which is 70W-75. Gear oil "weights" are not the same as engine oils. Engine oils range from zero to 60 and gear oils from 70-140, but a SAE 70W-75 gear oil has about the same temperature-absolute viscosity characteristics as a SAE 20W-20 engine oil, and an 80W-90 overlaps the range of SAE 30 through 40 engine oils.

I went through the same drill with "Mercedes-Benz antifreeze", and it took a couple of decades to figure that one out. It was jointly developed and patented by DB and BASF, so it was not commercially available in other brands; but once the patents expired it became available in other brands and the most common is Zerex G-05. It's a HOAT type that protects solder better than current OAT types, so I recommend it for vintage cars that have copper/brass radiators and/or heater cores. It's the new "universal" antifreeze.

Duke

Thanks for that valuable info Duke!

Dale

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1995 W124 Wagon

To be sure I have the correct hex wrench...It appears to be H14. Can someone confirm? Thanks

Dale

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1995 W124 Wagon

When I was hunting for this information a while back, I used to search on the internet in other languages and found the products. Usually from countries where dealership products are close to 8 times the market price of items.

I found out abt zerex G05 here in USA - I knew it as BASF Glysantin 05 formula before and its sold in a yellow tint here but the original BASF 1.5 litre containers have clear syrup liquid.



I recently had to go up that alley again for my BMW, I was trying to find a 2 pin connector for it, I only had the half the broken connector with half part number missing which BMW cannot sell me in single piece, They suggested I buy the wiring harness because its very cheap at 744 dollars, lol.

So after 3 hours hunting I found its made by TE connectivity and available in retail.

Further hunting found out that its also used by VW Group - and it was a grand total of 5 dollars at the VW dealership. same 5 dollars from mouser and pins, gaskets and crimp joints were all close to 50 cents a piece. Job done for less than 15 dollars including shipping.

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2012 BMW X5 (Beef + Granite suspension model)

1995 E300D - The original humming machine (consumed by Flood 2017)
2000 E320 - The evolution (consumed by flood 2017)