TexasCTD

I agree with the others. The factory fill is some nasty stuff. Replace it ASAP with a good GL-5 rated Synthetic 75w90 gear oil.

woodrep

Funny, I just got an 08 4door Jeep wrangler. The thing just now has 1100 miles on the ticker and the dam reardiff. is flaking and rusting off too! I am gonna wear the crap out of this bumper to bumper and powertrain warranty. Dont know if that should be covered, but I don't care. It's just the schittz when it's only got 1.1k! Piddly cracka.

wreedCTD

Guys what kind of paint has worked the best for you to paint this rear end with?

Sinbadd

My axle had some surface rust on it that I wanted to get rid of. After I wire brushed my axle I used some rust converter (turns rust into a hard black coating) then sprayed a rattle can industrial black paint over it. looks good. We don't get salt on our roads, if you do you might want to try some Rust bullet as a base coat heard it is good stuff on frames and chassis parts. Drive shaft was worse so I did the same with that.

herb

Perhaps it is a "sand blasting" effect caused by the Dodges going down the road so much faster than the chebies ?

Jus Cruisin

Just take a few minutes when you are waxing the truck and shoot the frame and axles with some semi-gloss Rustoleum. Then take the wax off. No overspray issues that way. Why on earth would you bother to take the truck to the dealer for a do-it-youself touch-up? It would take longer for the Service Advisor to write a Repair Order than it takes to spray it yourself.

$oC@l CTD

I agree with this statement 100%...I just about threw up in my mouth in disgust when I saw the stock break in crap 75w90 gear oil pour out into that drain pan when I did my 15K maintenance. It literally looked like coffee with a good amount of creamer in it. I let it all drain out and took MULTIPLE rags and a good grease cleaning compound to the inside and cap of the differential, cleaned up the gasket good and put it back on and tightened everything up good and tight, then filled it back up with Royal Purple 75w90 until it was just about to leak out of the fill hole...I don't know what it looks like in there now (I am only at about 21K now) but I am POSITIVE it doesn't look like it did when I did my maintenance. They should be shot for cutting corners like that.

Peterbilt

Four years and 82K miles and still like new.

Pete

Nate-03 D

Since were on the topic of rearends and fluid I think this question will fit in here.

When draining the rear diff fluid and switching to a different brand( I have Red Line in now and I want to switch to Amsoil), is it ok to use a can of brake cleaner or some other kind of cleaner to get all of the old fluid out? Or would that be bad to have some brake cleaner in the diff mixed in w/ the new oil?

And my truck has 85k on the ticker and my cover still looks great. It has only seen 2 years of winter though. Give it a couple more years and im sure it will be in bad shape.

$oC@l CTD

I don't know as to whether or not brake cleaner will diminish your AMSoil's performance or not, but I would think that you would be good to go with just some rags and grease cleaning spray like I used...if you park your truck on a hill (nose up), spray everything down really well and allow a few minutes for it to break everything up and run out of the diff and wipe it out good with some good clean rags, I think it will be sufficient. ANYTHING has to be better than the stock crap I changed out of my truck.

As a disclaimer: I recommend to EVERYBODY out there with less than 15K and more than 5K on their trucks, go ahead and change the stock differential fluids out...had I known it was going to look like it did, I would have never let it go that long without putting some good stuff in.

Nate-03 D

What kind of a grease cleaning spray did you use? I got the truck w/ 50k on it so I don't know how many times it was changed or what fluid was used. I know when I changed it for the first time it did not look bad at all. I only have about 20k miles or so on the rear diff oil now, maybe not time for a change just yet but a little earlier is better then a little later.

$oC@l CTD

I'm in the military, so I used some aircraft cleaning compound from my ship...really breaks up about any kind of grease, but i think that about any grease cutting agent would be good to go as long as you get as much of it out as possible with the rags.

mj007

Get your creeper and a rattle can of W-Mart black and be happy!