<E30> Clutch and Transmission questions

["Boyd, David (Neighbour Boy)" <boydd@xxxxxxxx>]

Howdy,

I have a couple of bonehead questions for you all.  

It is time to change out the manual transmission oil in both my wife's
and my car - 318i and 325e.  The Bentley recommends straight 80 weight
non-hypoid oil.  I've been looking all around and can't find it anywhere
so I decided to head to the dealer to see what they have.  The guy at
the parts counter recommended straight 20 weight.  That's a pretty big
discrepancy.  Who should I believe?  I know a lot of you recommend
Redline MTL, but I've only seen it recommended for M3's.  Should I just
buy some Redline, slap it in and not worry so much about it?  If so,
where's a good place to buy it?

The Bentley also shows a tool that allows you to check for clutch disk
wear.  It looks somewhat like a glorified feeler gauge that you slide in
between the bellhousing and the slave cylinder until it touches the
pushrod.  Then you measure the distance from the mark on the gauge and
the bellhousing.  I asked the dealer about it thinking it would be $5 or
so.  Nope, $52.  It looks like I could use a feeler gauge with a mark
scratched on it.  Does anybody know the distance from the end of the
gauge to the mark?

Any help would be appreciated

- --David Boyd
boydd@domain.elided
BMW CCA 
BMW ACA
SRFC

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