anyone know how to remove the cover of a 1988 ford f150 differential to replace the gasket?

I just dont see any bolts to remove..............

 

There is no "cover". The axle beam itself is the cover. You remove the bolts on the front, the whole differential housing comes off, and then you can put your gasket or sealant in.

 

It's a pain. You need to pull the diff housing off the left side swing arm (traction beam). The bolts to do that are pretty obvious on the front of the swing arm.

The problem is everything else you need to get off to be able to pull the diff housing back from the swing arm. You'll need to take the driver's side axle out, which means taking the hub and spindle off (getting the spindle off can be a challenge, the rest goes pretty easily).

I've never tried it without also taking the passenger side axle out. It MIGHT be possible, but I'd recommend pulling it too (same as the driver's side except that you separate it at the slip joint in the right half-shaft rather than pulling it out of the diff).

Then you drop the front drive shaft.

There are also a couple of BIG bolts on the driver's side rear of the diff that need to come out (or at least there are on the Dana 50 in my F-250, I think the Dana 44 is similar). The challenge with them is getting a long enough cheater on your breaker bar. It took a LOT of torque to break mine free.

Once all of that is done (do the "cover bolts" through the swing arm last) it can be a bit of a trick to snake the housing out past the pivot point of the right side swing arm. On my F-250 it was easier if I supported the truck on the frame and let the suspension droop.

Good luck!

 

any write ups or videos of this being done?

 

My smart aleck response is "probably, but none that I've done." Seriously, I intend to add it to my crew cab thread at some point, but it will be an overview, not a how-to. And I didn't even take any pictures through the project much less videos.

But I don't think it's a project that really needs a video. It's just a slow process of looking and figuring out what needs to come off next. The only hard parts were getting enough torque on some of the bolts (a breaker bar and the handle off my Hi-Lift jack took care of that for me) and snaking the diff in and out of position (it went easier after letting the suspension droop).

OK, I take that back. The hardest part was getting the retaining rings out of the Dana 50 U-joints (replacing U-joints was my actual project, but pulling the diff is a part of that). But the retaining rings on a Dana 44 are a lot easier if you need to change your U-joints (while you have everything else apart is a good time for it).

 

dang, thats alot of work just to change one seal.

dangit.

 

is there any kind of gasket type material you can put around the outside of the seal to try and keep it from leaking?

 

I'm pretty sure you can just take the bolts out and slip a new seal in there without actually having to disassemble everything.

 

Generally, no. You can try to clean it up as best you can and put some RTV on it. It isn't hard to try and it doesn't cost much, so it might be worth a shot. But I've never seen it work very well.

I'm not going to say you definitely can't do that, but I'd be pretty surprised if it worked. With the axle shafts still in the diff you won't be able to move it back much (I'd be really surprised if you could get it back a half inch). You've got essentially no way to try to clean out the old sealant (RTV in the case of my truck). And the ring gear protrudes past the front edge of the diff into the bulged out "cover", so you'll need to try to get the gasket to go past the ring gear.

If you want to try it that way, go ahead. But expect to need to take everything else apart in the likely event that you get stuck with the diff loose with no way to get it sealed up even as well as it was.