I was wondering what would be best to clean the inside of a rear end. The gears and the inside of the housing. I thought of using a break cleaner or maybe deisel. something that will not hurt the bearings. What would you use? I thought break cleaner would work as it would dry out faster. By the way the rear ends are not in the trucks yet.

Thanks for the information,
Larry Brauer

 

I would use petroleum solvent and if not available next best is pain thiner. They both dry oil free. If you have compressed air I would use solvent/thinner with a brush working it into all nooks and crannies (if you have any crannies anyway). Then I would squirt it off with a jet stream from a garden hose and then blow all the water out 'till it is dry. You will need to apply a light weight oil immediatly to prevent rust.

 

I think the "ten foot pole" rule applies here,Larry.LOL!

 

HAAA!! Now that right there that's funny. I always use Gas or diesel solvent and compressed air to blow it out. I take em apart though so to get it all out, put in new brgs if needed and new seals always. Set it back up and I know it is good ta go and never worry about it again till I see a leak.

 

For what you'd spend in chemicals, solvents and materials, you can take the third member to a shop with one of those big 'washing machines' and have them give it a bath for 5 or 10 minutes. That's what I did the last time I needed to clean one. They didn't even charge me. The inside of the housing shouldn't be so dirty as to need much of a scrubbing.

 

Around my place, jobs like this call for a pump up garden sprayer and a couple gallons of diesel fuel or kerosene. The sprayer makes short work of washing out the gook and diesel or kero is fairly inexpensive. Oily residue? Sure, but who cares? You're not painting it and you're going to fill it back up full of oil anyway!

 

Never EVER use gasoline as a cleaning solvent. It's far too flammable. Diesel, kerosene, yes, but not gasoline.

 

Each to his own