Shopping for a new Diff Cover

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:32 am

kinda hard to clean off the magnet through a drain hole

03CDKJ · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:55 am

The ruff stuff cover comes with a drain plug...
But it takes over an hour for it to drain.... :roll:

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:49 am

lubelocker + any diff cover of your choice is by far the easiest method

dgeist · **Posted:** Fri Oct 22, 2010 4:56 pm

CRD Joe wrote:

Does anyone make a diff cover with a drain hole???

A few of the manufacturers offer it as an option, or you could have a local machine shop put in a threaded bung for you. BUT, as it's not at the complete bottom of the diff (like the front is), you'll never get all the tiny little shavings and any little bits of dirt out of the diff (the biggest reason for changing the oil in the first place). You're better off opening it up every gear oil change anyway, so... the question is: If you're trying to protect the diff, do you want to do the oil change half-way?

Spend a few bucks on a lubelocker gasket and the only thing that makes this more difficult than changing the oil is the requirement of a socket wrench.

Dan

LibertyGuy · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:46 pm

What's the benefits of changing the dif cover?

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:10 pm

stock cover is stamped metal, not exactly strong particularly at the edges where a rock or other object could peel the edge dumping your grease on the ground

many replace them with aftermarket steel covers to deter offroad hazard damage to the rear end diff.

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:36 pm

JeepinJarhead03 wrote:

stock cover is stamped metal, not exactly strong particularly at the edges where a rock or other object could peel the edge dumping your grease on the ground

many replace them with aftermarket steel covers to deter offroad hazard damage to the rear end diff.

X2, and it may hold a little extra gear lube.

tommudd · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:47 pm

The Crane I have on mine right now takes 3 quarts or more
Can't remember what the others took

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:59 pm

tommudd wrote:

The Crane I have on mine right now takes 3 quarts or more
Can't remember what the others took

The stock takes 4.3 pints. So the Crane diff cover would add almost an extra quart.

Superliberty · **Joined:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:41 pm **Posts:** 10

rokmen has a durable diff cover

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 5:18 pm

the extra capacity - in part - is due to the fill hole being higher which was done to accommodate for a change in the angle of the rear diff due to a lift, part of it may be due to an increase of volume inside the diff with the aftermarket cover, but much of it is due having overfilled it when you put lube in to the point that it comes out of the aftermarket fill hole

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 5:27 pm

JeepinJarhead03 wrote:

the extra capacity - in part - is due to the fill hole being higher which was done to accommodate for a change in the angle of the rear diff due to a lift, part of it may be due to an increase of volume inside the diff with the aftermarket cover, but much of it is due having overfilled it when you put lube in to the point that it comes out of the aftermarket fill hole

You don’t recon that the extra fill is bad, do you? I remember talking to Josh at Crane when I bought mine. I do remember him saying that the Crane held almost a quart more than stock, but I was assuming he meant the design was to increase capacity. I didn’t realize that the plug was moved to a higher location resulting in more capacity.

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:29 pm

i personally dont think so particularly with the crane, i dont think you can "submerge the diff" with fluid with the fill hole being that close to "midline"

technically, issues could arise when overfilling on the rockcrushers and any aftermarket cover that has that type fill hole which is towards the top of the cover rather than the center

overfill can cause frothing, blow out seals etc, or make it throw up through the vents]

pretty sure the rocks said to fill it till you could touch it with your finger, not till it jumped out and touched your fingers

I've seen plenty of issues with overfilled diffs but not specifically with filling our aftermarket diffs till it flows out the fill hole

but on the technicality aspect, Yes, it Could cause problems

there's several oz of leeway above and below the happy line that won't cause issues

there was a international dump truck that i used to service that would blow out seals every single time you over filled it, we ended up taking a piece of cork and supergluing it to a inkpen shaft, sticking that through the fill hole and resting it on roughly the center of the diff, it would float up when the grease got to it telling us to stop

specifically with the crane, i'd say fill it till it burps

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 8:24 pm

JeepinJarhead03 wrote:

i personally dont think so particularly with the crane, i dont think you can "submerge the diff" with fluid with the fill hole being that close to "midline"

I agree

JeepinJarhead03 wrote:

specifically with the crane, i'd say fill it till it burps

I agree

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:16 pm

I picked up a http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/cat ... p-152.html

tommudd · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:23 pm

I had a couple of the Ruffstuffs, someone always wanted one before I could get it installed
I like the Crane though!

Lancer · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2010 7:37 am

How much do you put into a ruffstuff? Do you just fill to the filler hole, or is it better to put in a fixed amount? If it's more than the standard amount, do you also put in a correspondingly greater amount of the friction modifier(for those of us with the Tracloc)?

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2010 11:33 pm

CRD Joe wrote:

Does anyone make a diff cover with a drain hole???

Yeah, I wish someone made one for the KJ, that’s why I love the Mag-Hytec covers on my truck. It comes with a magnetic drain plug and anodized aluminum dipstick with magnetic insert. Changing out the fluid is made easy without removing the differential cover, plus it has a lube level reference plug.

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Sat Oct 30, 2010 6:35 pm

Do you guys think the steel of the Ruff Stuff is a negative? Its going to hold in the heat more than an aluminum cover would wont it??

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:15 pm

i think in relation to what you would dissipate with a finned aluminum, mixed with the operating temps expected on differentials the gains for most applications would be rather minimal

modern gear lube is pretty stout, you'd have to have something wrong, fluid level or component wise in order to raise temps to a level where that would begin to factor in, 8.25 is a stout axle (yeah i know that sounds funny to some) for our application, weight and towing capacity

aluminum is more prone to fracture, which a drop onto a rock or other hard object which these covers are designed to protect against, would be exactly a situation where aluminum may form the fracture

i'm no engineer, but when you're talking about swinging a pick axe at something and not wanting it to fail, material of choice is usually steel

Shopping for a new Diff Cover

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