Pandomonium at the diff shop
Well upon arrival for the morning after I see a gorgeous diff being assembled, only to moments later have my happiness smashed against the rocks. Apparently Ford did not have preload spacers in stock and mine were broke....Now we have trips to junk yards and grindings of the spacers to look forward to. To spare all the boredom numberous steps
Now we get many hours later and no amount of math is solving the problems of backlash and the bearing caps not fitting correctly....frustration, threats of have to scrap this rear end and then I step in....while the owner of the shop who is also the head honch mech is on the phone to the gear and bearing house,,,,I place the carrier in the pumking and I find that without any preload she wont sit all the way down in the diff....why you might ask? well just as the owner looks over and i look at him dissapointment and realization set in his face, and I knew what happened.....wrong bearing put the pinion out 1/2 inch would never fit....all in all this was at 4 pm and I was done and out by 7 pm with a grand total of $1058.00 on the road, new rear end 6thousanths backlash upgraded grears and happy as can be. Moral of the story, replace gear oil every 25 thousand and after every winter or heavy driving in rainy months...Synthetic if you have the money and want a tad more milage or gear oil cause its cheap and almost the same thing...whew...Troy

 

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. I am a BIG believer in synthetic gear oil. I use Redline Shockproof Heavy 75-140. Here's a link:
http://www.redlineoil.com/products_g...61&subcatID=20
I've eliminated knocking noises coming out of the rear axle on my old '91 gasser that only had 60k on it. Went from KNOCK on every take off to complete silence using that oil.

 

hmm... i have 70K on my mule and i dont think it has been replaced at all. i bought the truck at an auto auction and know nothing about it. should i do it with redline? how hard is it to change, how much does each diff take (front/rear) and which blend should i get?

 

Your 550 is the easiest: it has a drain plug on the bottom of the Dana 135. But it also holds 3.5 gallons of the good stuff, so be prepared for a big hit on the wallet. All the rest of them I believe you must remove the rear cover to get them to drain. Also you'll have to read up on whether the shockproof is compatable with limited slip or not, and whether you have it or not. None of my trucks did so I didn't worry about it.
While you have them off, drill a hole in the bottom of the bell, and tack weld a nut there so you can have a drain plug for the next time through. I did that on both of my f-250s and on my old Chevy.
I have never changed the diff oil on the front, I rarely use 4x4 so the oil never really gets used. On the Fords its a PITA to get the diff cover off on the front axle and I would have rather optioned for a small hose and a vacuum pump to drain it that way.
I don't know how much the "little" truck hold.
Hope this helps.

 

Kenny, I did not see this post until I answered your first one. A G is a lot of cash.

 

Kwik,

Good idea about making our own drain plug. How about just threading the hole and using a bolt and o-ring, or a small pipe tap and pipe plug? No welding involved.

What size hole did you make? Any thoughts go into the location (other than low point) re: structural integrity of the casting?

Pop

 

On all of my trucks the diff cover was stamped steel - too thin for me to be confident of the threads holding. So I took a 8x12x1.25mm allen head bolt, a copper sealing washer, and a 8x13.1.25mm nut. In inches that's about 5/16. It doesn't have to be huge, it'll all drain out through that hole in less than five minutes. Drilled the right sized hole and installed the new "plug" in the lowest possible point of the cover that was flat so the sealing washer would seal. Three small tack welds around the nut to secure it, and you now have a drain plug. I do that with every pan that I have off of cars, truck that do not have one already. Automatic transmission pans get it every time. Who wants to unbolt a full pan that 1x2 feet and full of dirty, stinky ATF and try and contain the sloppy flood?

 

Kwik,

Ahhhh, you put the drain in the cover. I was thinking you had drilled the differential center section casting.

Makes more sense your way.

Heck, I could get another diff cover and do the plug, then have it around for the next time I have to have it off.

Thanks again,

Pop