It's too slow

[Jason Scoville]

My Bigfoot seems to be slowing down in this cold. I changed the transmission fluid because it was white and the constancy of Elmer's glue. It helped for a day or 3 but didn't take long for the new, clean gear lub to become white and glue like. Any feed back would be appreciated.

[dirtdobber]

Welcome to the site. What transmission do you have?

[Jason Scoville]

I don't know. I bought this machine 2 years back. It has reverse, low and high, how many different transmission choices are there?

[ARGOJIM]

there is a set of letters denoting ratio.

drain fluid again try to suck out what doesn't come out. repeat as necessary

[Jason Scoville]

34187 HU
These are the numbers that are on top of the transmission.

[ARGOJIM]

High speed trans like mine, they dont like the bottom.

[Jason Scoville]

I don't know what that means

[curtisbyrne]

thers high, low, medium ratio options. obviously high ratio trans are faster and have less torque low end power unlike the low ratio option which is slower and has lots of power. the medium(M) which i have is in between ratio and can be used with tracks without a problem. im not sure if the bigfoots used diff abbreviations but 90s models used HU MU GU. you may have water in the bottom of your transmission that u cant get out

[reichstall]

Yes you do have water in there it will take forever to get it out you could try to run it with kerosene for a few min. but no longer than drain. but oil soaked with water is pretty hard to remove .if you leave it sit for a bit you should notice water first than oil when you drain it .the problem is water soaked oil is all over the inside of the case. good luck at least the case did not freeze and crack.

[Jason Scoville]

So this is supposed to be a high-speed transmission. I do have tracks on it, they came on it. Took it out yesterday and clocked it at 11mph in high gear. I'm sure it was faster before my wife sank it in the pond. So water in the tranny makes sense. I'll flush and keep you posted. Thankful

[ARGOJIM]

Tracks on a high speed transmission just plain suck, power, low range is much slower but more useful and friendly to the engine. The early 6x6 Bigfoot and Vanguard2 had no trans choice but high speed.

Flushing the trans will help but will take a few changes to eliminate the water, especially if the trans is not removed to get it all out as there is a rounded bottom of case.

[philipatmaxfour]

So this is supposed to be a high-speed transmission. I do have tracks on it, they came on it. Took it out yesterday and clocked it at 11mph in high gear. I'm sure it was faster before my wife sank it in the pond. So water in the tranny makes sense. I'll flush and keep you posted. Thankful

Funny how it took a bit before you mentioned that it was sunk in the pond. Would you be willing to share the story of how that happened? Are you a Canadian? We have been successful in flushing a trans till it was no longer white and creamy but it took several flushes in a row.

[Jason Scoville]

So I flushed in a bunch and it comes out much cleaner now than it did before. I use kerosene twice, ran it through for about 2 minutes each time. Then flushed with regular gear lube 8090 about 10 times. My owner's manual tells me to use 80 90 weight gear lube HYPOY-C. I can't find that anywhere. Where does one get that? And what is the difference between GL-5 and HYPOY - C ??

[trevorakm1]

This is an interesting topic. I have a 2001 bigfoot and I get about 17-18 mph by gps. I thought it was a couple miles or so faster when I first got it. I don't put alot of time on the machine but I did change the tranny fluid once not long ago time wise on the hobbs meter. I had milky brown tranny fluid drain out and this is where my lack of knowledge plays in. I haven't changed the fluid out since the one mentioned so I'm not sure if it would be milky again? I get the water mixed in but what exactly is it doing to the transmission and how is it translating to degraded performance of the argo? Would this also cause the tranny to be louder than normal? Also would cleaner tranny fluid help with the gear grinding I get while shifting. Can't seem to ever find the sweet spot of the idle to get smooth shifting without having to pull the choke momentarily to slow the idle.
Also don't mean to hijack the thread and curious to hear the OP results of the cleaner tranny fluid.

[Jason Scoville]

So I have flushed the transmission a bunch of times using standard 80 90 gear lube, I then flushed it with kerosene for proximately 2 minutes driving slowly in my driveway. Then flushed it a bunch more times with standard 80 90 gear lube. I drove it around for about an hour and the gear lube is basically the same as when I put it in. So that's great thank you for that advice.
I have a couple other questions: 1- what is the difference between GL-5 and HYPOY-C?? I cannot find the HYPOY-C anywhere locally. Where do I get it?? Is it really that necessary??
2- after my gear lube flushing I was hoping the machine would go faster but it does not. I did read in a different thread about tire size and how that could affect my speed. I do have 25 in tires and what I believe are called channel tracks. I have the axle extensions because the tracks have a 4in extension on either side of the tire. So my question is if I put the 24 inch tire on it is that going to make the machine faster?