Holy Pickles! 60 000 KM service surprise

drharv · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:53 pm

Mornin'
I was performing the 60000 km service in the beast and was very surprised when I accessed the front diff drain plug. I put the allen key to it and it was less than finger tight. Yikers! The diff fluid had been replaced (one year prior at 25 000 km) by an unscrupulous dealer who took the previous owner's wife for about $700 when she said "do whatever needs to be done" when she only needed an oil change.

I figure that the tech just tightened it enough or something. It wasn't leaking but it would have fallen out somewhere during one of my many trailer towing vacations and cabbaged the diff somethin fierce. All is well that ends well though, I just thought I would tell the tale and see if it will save someone else some trouble.

Question, has anyone used an oil extractor to remove diff fluid during a change? I may drain it...use some gear oil to rinse it and then refill with the good synthetic stuff I have.

bdptp73 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:11 pm

When I went to change the front diff fluid on mine the plug wasn't very tight either. It had to come from the factory that way b/c I'm the only one who has touched it since new. I used an oil extracter for changing the rear diff, I didn't want to mess around with the whole gasket until it starts leaking. It took me all of 3 minutes to change the rear fluid.

drharv · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:22 pm

Thanks...I just bought an extractor for oil changes on my wife's 2004 Jetta TDI wagoon and realized that I will be able to use it on the rear dif.

dgeist · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:51 pm

I use a bit of loctite on mine before replacement after the drain. It doesn't looks like it'll take much torque to strip it so the blue-stuff does my mechanical retention. The tricky part is getting the threads dry before putting it in.

Dan

geordi · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:14 pm

Differential fluid is a new one on me, I don't think it's ever been changed on our other Jeep, a 97 Grand Cherokee with north of 200k on it. What kind of juice goes in there, and how often does it need to be serviced?

I guess i should make a list of all the stuff to do to mine when I'm home in a couple weeks, I'll finally have access to all my tools and some ramps.

CATCRD · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:37 pm

The front diff drain plugs were loose on both my CRDs. This was from the factory.

75W-90 (synthetic if you choose) will do in both diffs. If you tow heavy loads DC recommends 75W-140 in the rear, which only comes in synthetic. They recommend a 12k mile change interval, which may imply that they know the axles are running at the ragged edge of life with the torque of our engine. That's what it says to me anyway. The gas KJs have longer intervals.

I changed mine once or twice in the first 25k with quality synthetic and I'm going to forget about them until 75k unless I get them underwater.

SCKJCRD · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:22 pm

Quote:

Question, has anyone used an oil extractor to remove diff fluid during a change? I may drain it...use some gear oil to rinse it and then refill with the good synthetic stuff I have.

I use an oil extractor on the rear diff so I won't have to remove the cover. I don't worry about rinsing it, I just suck everything out, and move the hose around to try to get every last bit possible. Very neat and clean, and I'm satisfied with the results. Since the front has a drain plug I do it the "normal' way.

Holy Pickles! 60 000 KM service surprise

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