Just changed my rear axle and trans. oil the other day. Axle had what I thought was quite a bit of metal on the fill plug. But when I removed the diff. cover everything looked fine with no other metal anywhere. Was pleased with this and moved on the the transmission. Removed the bottom bolt on the pto cover on the drivers side of the trans. and let drain. I was real curious how things looked inside as far as syncros and oil that did not drain. I also remembered reading about a magnet that was supposed to be in the bottom of this thing somewhere. Looked up in there pretty hard and my syncros looked worn for 22,000 miles. I started feeling around in the bottom for the magnet and found it. It is a one inch square magnet up towards the front. It had a sh!tload of metal and brass in the oil. I spent 30 minutes dragging the remaining oil out with my fingers and each time alot of brass. I think this was contributing to my shifting being harder. It does shift a bit better now but did not make it like I think it should. But I would advise to check yours if you plan on changing it. I know this trans. is big but I pulled out over a tablespoon of metal out.

 

An old trans man told me years ago that if you ride with you hand on the shifter you chew the synchros up and eventually will pay him a visit for rebuild!

 

That is not the case, I don't ride the shifter or the clutch. I'm an old farmboy and my dad would have kicked me square in the *** if I would have done such a thing. I don't even shift without the clutch on this truck, although I would if the go pedal was the old linkage vs. the electronic junk we have now. The common rail also makes it a pain because the rpms don't fall like the old engines did.