Draining middle gear at oil change 81 seca xj750 ??

Hi Newbie Deborah here:

In the Haynes manual it says to drain the middle gear/middle drive when doing your oil change. I read something that someone said about leaving it alone.

Any comments.

I would like to avoid any problems and if you guys recommend not touching it I wont.

Please advise.

Deborah

 

Rick will tell you to leave it alone. With good reasons too.
I'll tell you that it only removes less than half a cup of oil and it is easily circulated out with a fresh oil change. I've never changed out mine and when I split my case a few years back, I didn't find any wear indications on my middle drive (let's hear it for Castrol GTX 20/50!!).
There is a propensity for the drain bolt to break off or strip out on our XJ's (I'm not sure why, I didn't do either to mine) so best just left alone unless you are equipped to deal with the possible issues that may arise from such efforts.
Best advice I can give you.

 

Hi Robert:

Thanks for your quick response. I was suspecting that may be the case.
Ok-I'm going to leave it alone then.

I got Castrol GTX oil too. it was $3.99 a quart at Kragen. Beats the $7 plus dollars a quart they charge at the stealers.

I'm just putting petroleum based oil, due to the comments made here, cause I hear synthetics, cause the old seals to weep.

Thanks again for your great help.

Deborah

 

I knew I'd read something about leaving that middle plug alone! Gotta love the search feature. I'm hoping to change my oil this afternoon for the first time and I thought I'd heard horror stories about messing with the middle plug.

Thanks everyone,
mikeg