MGF Gearbox oil - Canadian source or equivalent type?

I believe the recommended gear box oil is Land Rover MTF-94, which is a "specific manual transmission fluid formulated with dedicated additive technology and non conventional base stocks." From previous searches MTF-94 seems to be equivalent to GL-4.

Rich, John, have either of you replaced gearbox oil and what did you use?

Mark,
From what I understand the gearbox is derived from a Honda unit.
I went to the local Honda dealer and bought the appropriate grade of Honda MTF.
The price was a fraction of Land Rover's.
That said, I am still not all that happy with my shifting, even after replacing the cables and
fitting a slick-shift kit. I would really like to hear people's opinions on other brands of MTF
like Red-Line and Pennzoil. I may just do a bit of research to see what other oils meet the specs
for our PG1 gearbox.

Hi Rich,

I had read and sort of inferred the same, that the PG1 was from Honda or designed during the years Honda was involved with Rover.

I too have been trying to determine what specs the Rover gear oil meets. Here's what I have found out:

MTF-94 gear oil available at Land Rover dealer. From Texaco’s Europe website: “High performance manual transmission fluid designed to meet the demands of higher power passenger car engines. Superior protection for gearboxes and bearings. Recommended for use in a wide range of synchronised manual transmissions where a 75W-80W or 80W oil meeting API GL-4 performance level is required.”

Castrol SMX-S has been mentioned on T-bar. Castrol’s UK website recommends: Syntrans Multivehicle 75W-90, which is a GL-4 gear oil.

Do a search on Land Rover and gear oil I found that Redline MTL 70W80 GL-4 is “popular with Land Rovers”.

Which Honda gear oil did you use? Is it GL4?

I just did another search and found: http://www.amsoil.com/StoreFront/mtf.aspx. Amsoil's Synthetic Manual Synchromesh Transmission Fluid (MTF) does say: "Recommended for automotive and light-truck applications that require synchromesh transmission fluid. Replaces MTF-94 fluid for Land Rover, MG, and Mini Cooper. Replaces Honda Genuine MTF fluid for manual transaxles and Texaco MTX fluid.

Wow! Good stuff Mark.
Thanks for that.
Now I just have to decide which one to try next.
I think I will be doing an oil change next month and will probably
change the gearbox oil while I am at it. For the cost of a couple of litres
it's worth trying a different brand.

I spent some time at lunch looking at the "recommended" UK gear roils and some of the different oil available here in Canada and developed a table summarizing them. To me what it shows is that the gear oil for the MGF is a GL4 rated oil and not a GL5. I think I'll give Redline's MTL or Amsoil's MTF a try, depending which one I can find it locally.

I'll tell you what.
Let me know which oil you try and I will try the other and we can compare notes.
Sort of an unscientific test!

I can find Amsoil locally, I don't know about Redline. I think either the Redline or the Amsoil should be a good replacement. Both are pretty pricy with Amsoil at almost $14/Q and Redline from JEGS at $15/Q, so one needs to buy 3Q for a refill

Now I am not sure if Amsoil's MTF is the right oil. The local dealer provided me this information:

"I received a call back from the AMSOIL Tech Centre they reviewed the specs for Texaco MTF-94 against AMSOIL MTF and have confirmed it is a direct replacement. My contact indicated they did a line by line review and AMSOIL meets or exceeds in all properties. When I asked about the specified viscosity difference they indicated this was probably due additive pkg differences and the effect that this has on viscosity measured at different temperatures. My Technical contact indicated you can use the AMSOIL MTF without concern.

For what it is worth (and believe me I understand you don’t want your baby to get hurt) but when AMSOIL specifies a lubricant for a particular application either through the Dealer or the Tech Centre the AMSOIL Guarantee covers the cost of repair (not just the cost of the oil) if it is determined the failure was due to the lubricant specified."

Sounds good. But then I noticed that there is API service class provided for Amsoil's MTF so I asked if it was a GL4 or GL5 rated oil and I received this reply:

"I talked to AMSOIL Tech Support again to field your question. The MTF tranny lube is neither GL-4 or GL-5 certified which means it does not have any EP additives. The MTF-94 oil is a dual purpose lube that can be used in both the synchromesh manual style tranny and gear cases requiring higher shear loadings like hypoid drives and hence it has some EP additives, and carries a GL-4 cert. My contact assures me that the two oils will have essentially the same viscosity at 100 deg and further indicated the EP additive is not required in your application.

In addition my contact further cautioned not to use AMSOIL MTG (Manual Transmission & Transaxle Gear Lube 75W-90) which has a GL-4 rating as an alternative as this oil does not have the required additive pkg for the synchro cones in your transmission. Hope this helps."

Yeah...I don't know. Saying that EP additives are not required in the PG1 transmission puts up a red flag for me. For the manufacture to specify a GL4 rated oil means to me that a GL4 rated oil is needed, otherwise the manufacture would have specified 20W50 motor oil like was used in my MGBGT. I don't think I'll use Amsoil MTF.

Mark,
I have a bottle of the Honda MTF in front of me and it has absolutely no information on it.
Other than the usual claptrap, "Advanced Protection, Lower Fluid Friction, Low Oxidation, yada, yada.
There are no figures or ratings.
Hmmmf!

Mark reminded me in another post that I hadn't posted the results of my gearbox oil change yet.
I drained out the Honda oil which has been in the car for the last year and installed Royal Purple
Max-Gear 75-90wt gear oil. It is rated APL4/APL5.
The Honda oil came out perfectly clean which is nice. The Royal Purple cost about 4 times as much and guess what?
If anything the gearchange isn't as good. This may be due to viscosity. The Honda oil wasn't marked with a weight.
I guess they expect their customers to trust them!
Once the car has warmed up the shifting improves a bit but not an awful lot.
I do have a spare crossgate cable to replace my repaired one so when I need some suffering I will swap them.8-)

Thanks Rich for the update.

Surprising that the gear changes don't feel as smooth, 75W90 is pretty standard viscosity range for gear oil. I need to change mine and when I do I'll give the Redline oil a try.