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Mangusta ZF Dipstick?

mangustamangustaMember
OK, I keep hearing about these, but have yet to see one.....

In a Pantera, that 90 degree angle fitting just to the right of the red strap is supposed to be your dipstick.


If you actually put that much gearlube in a -1 ZF in a Goose, you'd be spewing oil out every seal and port in the trans and most likely overheating it too due to the friction created by too much oil in the box!!!

Flip the trans upside down, flip the dipstick fitting to face up, and now you have something that would make sense....in a Pantera!

In the -1 section of the old Hall Pantera ZF book, there is a crude diagram of a dipstick that is attached to the vent assy. The vent is that brass looking big nut sorta thing at the right rear of the top cover. It appears in this picture above, as the funny looking thing above the 90 degree dipstick thingy.

If any of you have ever removed your vent assy to put lube in your trans, OR check it via looking in this hole, did your vent assy have a dipstick looking thing on it? It would be several inches long, vs no length at all......

Just as a note, if you ever wanted to check your ring gear to see if any bolts are loose, or if it has been safety wired, you can pop this vent fitting out, and using a good flashlight, you can see the ring gear and all sorts of things!!!

I like to keep my oil just below mid point on the main shaft, as this keeps the oil level below the input seal. I can't remember the fill amount for gear lube, but the -2ZF takes 7.5 units and the -1ZF in our Goose config takes 3.5 pints....see below...

I am hypothesizing that in the following picture, that the small pipe plug just forward of the "not dipstick" and down about 4-5 inches is the "full" indicator on these units.... it looks like about where you would fill an American trans in terms of the mainshaft centerline relationship....

(This picture is posted as an attachment to my post a couple down from this. I can't put pictures in with text on this site...)


As for draining the trans, on mine, I find a pipe plug in the main shifter selector section of the trans (that section just in front of the black rear cover) and then a tiny one in the main body, just above where the crossmember is (so that when you drain it, oil hits the crossmember and preserves it for eternity by coating it most generously with 80-90W....ugh!).

If you flipped the trans over, as in the Pantera, this tiny hole becomes a vent tube fitting I believe...

How does your trans stack up to what I've posted??? I could have put this in the ZF section of the Pantera board, but figured I'd put it here......first!

Steve

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G gusonMember
Late reply but still... Smiler Steve's theory that the pipe plug is a level plug is wrong. That plug hides the retainer for one of the
input shaft bearing outer races. The ZF manual that I've seen offered does not cover the Dash-1 despite claims of doing so. It covers the Dash-2 and the Dash-0. The oil volume of 3.5 pints is for the Dash-0. The exploded view shown here is also for a Dash-0. Note the different shifter housing. I highly doubt that the Dash-1 on Mangusta configuration is happy with as little as 3.5 pints in the long run. The Dash-1 in Pantera config takes as much oil as a Dash-2 in Pantera config.

Tomas
mangustamangustaMember
Guson,

When using the rear cover angled plug for a fill level (as recommended by Lloyd) 3.5 pints pretty much does the job.

However, to answer your concern, think of where the centerline of the mainshaft is when in the Goose, and when in the Pantera. When in the Mangusta, the centerline is very low in the case, and 3.5 pints would partially submerge the mainshaft and all it's gears. The spinning action of the mainshaft throws oil around to the ring gear etc just fine. Trying to fit another 4 pints of oil in there would totally submerge it and would cause all sorts of hell! Not to mention possibly foaming the oil, and pushing oil out of every seal in the trans! Bad shifting would be a symptom of too much oil.

Now, flip it over in a Pantera, and you have the large cavity in the main case, where only the ring gear is dipped in oil and perhaps the bottom of the mainshaft & gears. This splashes the oil onto the counter gear etc but the bottom line, is that the mainshaft is still not submerged totally.

In US car trannies, Ford toploader or Borg Warner T-10 for two, the full level only covers the counter gear and part of the main shaft assy gears, but is still below the seal level of the main shaft.

It would only stand to reason that this same theory of "not so much oil that it is above the centerline of the mainshaft" would still apply to the ZF no matter which way it is oriented, as noted by the two dramatically different "fill" capacities!

That's my two cents anyway!

Steve

PS: The Goose dipstick is (when equipped) a part of the vent that is located on the top cover, and NOT on the side as is shown in my picture at the top! I think that these Pantera type dipsticks just got installed..... and later on, someone figured out that they shouldn't be there at all on ZF's that are mounted properly! (...and not upside down!)
bosswrenchbosswrenchMember
I've seen early Panteras with the side-mounted miniature dipstick as in John's dwg, and I've also seen several Panteras that had a fitting and a longer dipstick that went through the top rear cssting where the hex bolthead is shown in John's excellent illustration. But one really doesn't need a dipstick in Panteras; the side hole in a dash-2 (or a dash 1-1/2 'early' as Lloyd refers to them)is known to work just fine as a lube-level gauge. I took a 90 degree side fitting, added a 6" length of 3/4" ID plastic hose (with clamps) and use that as a permanently attached top-fill system to save having to climb underneath or use a leaking funnel in the side hole, to add lube. I made a cap to close the hose off and it would be easy to add a dipstick rod, but in the 9 years since I did this, I've not yet found the need. In my own road tests, I found that a 500-mile thrash at 'over 100 mph' on the open road only heats the lube to about 180F degrees, so plain plastic hose seems safe. Real-racing is a way-different matter....
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