Today I went to Pep Boys to get an oil change. Boy what a trip. A story for another time.

They showed me where a liquid was leaking out of the bottom of the transmission and then told me it was the REAR SEAL leaking. My truck is a 1985 Aug model and quite old. I'm going to get an estimate from a good local transmission shop next Monday and they have been in business for a long time and they live within sight of my parents house so I can trust them.

But the guy at Pep Boy Evansville, IN told me that the manual transmission doesn't use transmission fluid but regular motor oil. I'm not sure I believe that. So when I got back home I fired up the computer and found my user name and password to this forum and thought I'd jump in here and ask this question.

Since they showed me the leak and I've seen a new oil like stain on the concrete driveway were I park my truck that's never been there before I do believe that something is leaking some type of fluid. I figured before I went to Pep Boys and as I first saw the stain on the driveway that I had got make the stain when filling the engine up with oil but could not remember spilling that much oil the last time I topped the engine off with some new Lucas Oil. I have been using the Lucas Oil Stop Leak to help keep the oil pressure up on the oil pressure gage in the inside instrument panel. (Makes me feel better anyway when I can see the oil pressure is up where I think it's suppose to be)

They also told me that all four ball joints were bad. The problem is that I was told that before about a year ago and got all four of the front ball joints replaces. So I knew that they could not be bad already. The Original ones lasted me 30 + years before I had them all replace for the very first time just last year. I think I had Midas Do that job for me. So I figure that they are just trying to take advantage of me and run up the sales for the day. I looked right at the young man who was shorter than me and smaller than me and told him that the Ball Joints were perfectly fine. He then shook the front tire again as the truck was up on the rack still and tried to tell me that my wheel bearings were bad on both front wheel. I told him that they were fine and I just wanted to get the oil changed and a new oil filter put on. I also wanted the Rear plug on the rear axle checked at fluid was leaking out of the plug and making a mess on the differential. That problem has been going on for a while now. About two years maybe. So I asked him to remove the plug and check the fluid level. He said he didn't have the right tool to do that and would have to borrow the tool from one of the othter mechanics. ( lady in the waiting area told me that she goes there a lot and that they recently fired a bunch of people and had some new guys there. I guess this was one of them. He didn't have a 1/2" Socket Wrench to use to get the plug out and check the fluid in the differential gear. Well he did that and fixed the leak by putting some liquid tape on the threads. Not sure how that will work but that's what the other so called advanced mechanic told him to do. My guess is that when some other garage checked the fluids the last time they either didn't get the plug back in tight or stripped a thread and caused it not to leak. But now I think it's just not put in tight enough because if the threads were messed up he would not have been able to get the plug back in the hole so easily. I was watching him do the job. They called me to come look at the truck when it was up on the rack and I was in the waiting room. So I was out in the garage seeing what they were doing.

They also charged me $35 for just the labor, 5 Dollars something for each quart of oil and then around 5 dollars for the oil filter. I had requested that they use high mileage oil for my truck this day. But I caught them trying to put in some cheap oil and only 30 weight oil at that. I made them put in new Penzoile Oil Like I had requested and stayed back in the garage and made sure that I saw them putting the right oil in there.

The deal there is an oil change for 25 bucks which is suppose to include the oil up to 5 quarts and a new oil filter. I'm not sure what type of oil they put in there for the $25 deal oil change but it's not the good oil for sure. I ended up paying about $65 for a stupid oil change which on their web site today is going for under $20. They have a sale on Tue though Thursday to try to drum up more business according to www.pepboys.com. I just checked that when I got back home today.

When I confronted one of the mechanics at the front service desk after I found out what they did. I looked at my receipt when I got out in the truck and then went back into the store to asked them some questions about the bill and the pricing.

I'm wanting other's to know how Pep Boys in Evansville, IN works so you can see if they do this to other people.

Anyway I got the oil changed and I'll be calling another garage to see what it's going to cost to get the rear seal on the transmission replace in order to stop the leak

Sorry for the long story.

Bottom line is what do they use inside the transmission. Transmission Fluid is what I would think that Nissan Uses. But the guy at the front service desk said that they just use regular motor oil. That just doesn't sound right to me. I think that the guy was not up to par but what do I know. So I need to ask people in here if he was right or just flapping his jaws and making nonsense noise and trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

The truck is 30 years old with 220,000 miles on it now and I'm trying to keep it running for a while longer. It actually runs pretty good and the transmission shifts flawlessly right now. But I fear it won't do that for long if the fluid is leaking out of the transmission.

What do you pay to get the rear seal replaced on a Nissan 1985 720 two wheel drive Z24 Carb engine with the NZAP engine with two spark plugs for each cylinder. 4 Cylinders. Gas engine. If it's going to cost $500 or more dollars I may just sell this truck and go buy another Truck. But I love my little 1985 Nissan as it's got the Long 6 ft long bed and it's the ST model with a lot of neat features. Like rear sliding glass windows and sun roof that pop up and lets the air get into the truck. Bucket seats that nice sporty wheel rims. It even has a full sized spare tire that stored up under the bed of the truck. Beside the newer Nissan truck don't have the same body style that my 1985 ST truck has. If they would make this truck again at the factory I'd buy it in a heart beat. This is our family's second Datsun/Nissan 720 Pick Up Truck. My dad had one and it lasted him over 24 years.

You should use GL4 gear oil that is yellow metal safe.
The rear transmission seal is an easy fix, drain the transmission, remove the driveline from the transmission, pry the old seal out, position the new seal and then tap it in carefully/evenly, the hardest part is buying the correct seal, as there are a few different ones, if you did it yourself, it would likely be a $30.00/$40.00 job depending on what quality gear oil you use, but having someone else do it, I have not a clue what it will cost for labor, with the correct equipment it's an hour job, but places like Pep Boys want to fix stuff that is not broken.

Waynosworld: Thank you for the response. I decided to take the truck to a good transmission repair shop that specialized in doing Transmissions. Rideouts is where I took the truck and they fixed it for under $100 and got it done in less than 4 hours. They had about 20 to 30 vehicles parked around the business and were very busy. But they managed to work my truck in and get it done in one day. We got the right part ordered the day before so when the part got to the facility they started to work on it. No more oil spots on my concrete driveway hopefully.

They used a oil that's 80 to 90 weight. I use something very similar on the lower unit of my Boat Motor. So far so good. I've only had the truck back for about 16 hours now and only drove it home for about 20 miles. I plan on driving a couple of hours today as I plan on taking a short day trip.

Pep Boys was advertising oil changes for around $20 with a coupon but I could not figure out where to get the coupons. I still think that $64 bucks for an oil change is high way robber and will be trying to check out some other places to do that work for me. And if not then I'll do it myself again. I can't afford to pay that much for a simple oil change.

OK I am not trying to alarm you, so don't get worried, I use GL5 in most if not all my transmissions, but all manual 720 transmissions have yellow metal in them, specifically the synchros, GL5 is supposed to degrade yellow metal, but I have never had an issue myself, your supposed to use GL4 that is labeled as "Yellow Metal Safe".
I do believe all this talk/worry/ruckus about yellow metal safe gear oil and the transmission synchros has more to do with lawyers than actual damage to the synchros, so the manufactures have to say to use this or that oil to keep from being sued by another bunch of lawyers that make money doing that sort of thing.
It's a perceived sort of threat thing, personally I think that we are more likely going to get cancer from the foods we buy at the stores than to have the synchros go bad in our 720 transmissions because of GL5, the more likely reason that a synchro will go bad is the way a lot of us shift, like the devil is right behind us.

Glenn Schoettlin wrote:Waynosworld: Thank you for the response. I decided to take the truck to a good transmission repair shop that specialized in doing Transmissions. Rideouts is where I took the truck and they fixed it for under $100 and got it done in less than 4 hours. They had about 20 to 30 vehicles parked around the business and were very busy. But they managed to work my truck in and get it done in one day. We got the right part ordered the day before so when the part got to the facility they started to work on it. No more oil spots on my concrete driveway hopefully.

They used a oil that's 80 to 90 weight. I use something very similar on the lower unit of my Boat Motor. So far so good. I've only had the truck back for about 16 hours now and only drove it home for about 20 miles. I plan on driving a couple of hours today as I plan on taking a short day trip.

Pep Boys was advertising oil changes for around $20 with a coupon but I could not figure out where to get the coupons. I still think that $64 bucks for an oil change is high way robber and will be trying to check out some other places to do that work for me. And if not then I'll do it myself again. I can't afford to pay that much for a simple oil change.