Another Rear Differential

[deserth3]

Originally Posted by bjc

These are rear diff pictures about 2 weeks after the replacement of my ring and pinon. Did they overfill the fluid, or what? I was pretty surprised to see this big of a mess underneath. Should I take it back to the dealer for a checkup?

Attachment 33149

Looks like you're getting a new rear axle this time. Take another look at your third picture.

[f5fstop]

I see that now, but what about photo 4. WTF is that in the fuel tank? Sure looks strange to me.

[bjc]

Picture 4 looks worse than it is -- I think some leaves got stuck in the drain hold to the fuel skid and then got coated with diff fluid / muck.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at in Picture 3:




Is that a plug that came "un-plugged", or is that a hole that shouldn't be there? How might this have happened?

[bjc]

So I dropped it back off to the dealer and showed them what was going on. Service manager calls me 30 minutes later and asked "what happened?" I tell him I smelled "buring oil" smell and got underneath to take a look - I found diff fluid cooking on the exhaust.

He says he noticed that there's a good bit of play in the yoke when he turns the drive-shaft with his hand. He then says that he noticed the driver's side shock mount appears to be pressed upwards and that there's an "impact mark" on my shock skid plate (the Amstar's they just installed). He wraps up by explaining that he's going to open up the diff and take a look to get more information, but that if he finds a bent axle, I had better contact my insurance.

I admitted to him that I had the truck on the trails since the ring and pinion replacement, but that I didn't see the correlation he was trying to draw between the marks on my shock skids and my rear axle blowing up. (To be clear, there are no impact marks on the rear diff or axle.) I told him that my expectation was that this would be warranty work, and that he had better have a solid explanation as to why it wouldn't be.

Anyway, I don't like where this seems to be headed....stay tuned.

[Desert Dan]

A scratch on your skids wouldn't bend an axle.

They probably didn't set up the diff correctly?