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So, I finally got around to changing out the gear oil on the entire truck (1975 710M) I took the opportunity to replace some of the plugs with EI's hex head replacements. Fortunately I only had one that stuck on me; but was able to get it loose. I didn't find even a hint of metal flakes in any of them except the transmission and the reduction gear box. I put the Redline GL4 80/90 in the transmission and put regular 80/90 in the reduction gear box. The first pic is the transmission plug. You can clearly see the little metal flakes on the magnet. The second and third pics are of the reduction gear box plugs. Some of what you see is very smooth gunk, instead of flakes, but there were some flakes or shavings in it. I have two questions for the experts: 1) How bad is what you see? In other words would you suspect serious damage to the gears? and 2) will the replaced gear oil prevent this from getting any worse? Everything seems to be running just fine and the truck definitely drives more smoothly since the oil replacement. I'm hoping I don't have a bigger job on my hands though. I've had the truck for about 3 years. I do not know what type of maintenance was done to it before I got it. Thanks for the input.

I think that the amount of metal on the magnets is "past history". The real question is: Now that you have changed the oil and cleaned the magnets, how much more will accumulate? Keep the boxes filled, and in a year change the oil again. If you have some but less accumulation I would not worry about it (the magnets will always collect more of what was already in the case and wasn't already stuck to them) but if you get more accumulation then obviously something is wearing. But even with good oil and maintenance, nothing will last forever; everything wears somewhat. And that is what the magnets are for, to collect the steel bits and hold them so they don't worsen things by being ground between the gears and bearings.

So carry on and keep an eye on them.