Aluminum differential cover with ribs/cooling fins, a bottom drain plug and a magnetic fill plug for next to nothing. What more could ya ask for.

Rolled around under an IRS Explorer for a bit, and yanked it's diff cover. Did some cutting, grinding and sanding to pretty it up.

Going to swap out the rear tin cover on my OBS standard cab, shortbox 4x4 with it.

 

This is a sweet idea! Most of the aftermarket covers are around $100 or more. Which years of explorers did these come on? Only thing is that fill plug is a little low, I'd probably stick to using the factory fill plug location. The cooling fins and drain plug are nice though.

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I like it. Right up my alley of cutting/grinding aluminum.

Nice work.

 

Yeah, use the fill hole in your truck housing for the proper fluid height level. The small plug in the cover is magnetic though, so at least it grabs any metal bits that might otherwise float around in the fluid.

2004 and up Explorers & Mountaineers have the independent Rear suspension.

 

Far out, man!

 

What, no cartridge rolls and Wenol? LOL!
Nice work.

 

way too funny David!

 

Wife knits, I like turning soft metal into shavings...

 

I will be grabbing one of these next time I'm at the junkyard.

 

Looks like it'd add some stiffness to the housing too, cool idea.

 

Nothing wrong with using the OEM cover. Actually it is better for oil flow than the fancy aluminum diff covers that are square inside

 

An FYI to any of us other enterprising cheap skates & hard-heads.

Climbed under Mountaineer today. Be prepared to drop the whole center-section since the whole point of this piece is as a structural member.

You can't just pull the bolts out & peel the cover off since there are 2 inside the buttresses & the cross-member covers them.

It was heat index of 105* so I passed on pulling it today.

Guy stopped & told me that these IRS's are hot ticket to build trikes out of.

 

My wifes 2002 Explorer is independent rear suspension. They went independent in either 2000 or 2001, so that makes the part pool a little bigger.

 

Mustang GT500 and Later Crown Vis had aluminum diff covers too.

No cutting or grinding necessary

 

Went to the yard this weekend to get a few things I needed, and while I was there waiting for my nephew to pull his parts, I figured I'd pull another Explorer cover.

With the Explorers, everything is bolts, threaded into tapped holes, so no nuts to hold.

Pull the four driveshaft bolts (12mm 12-point) and drop the shaft. Then pull the bottom three, and top four (12mm) diff cover bolts. Next pull the (18mm) rear bolts that mount the cover mousing to the frame, then remove the front pinion mount bolt (there's only three bolts that mount the entire differential into the chassis) Now rotate the differential down (it'll rotate on the axle shafts) and pull the remaining three cover bolts, and it's out.

To see how long it took, I timed it. From the moment I set my tool box down in the dirt, to the moment I stood up with the cover in my hand, It took a total of 26 minutes. The rear mounted spair tire was already removed, so that helped with the time a little, as it freed up some space to work. If I were to do it again, and used a cordless impact wrench, instead of hand wrenches and ratchets, I could probably get it down to about 15 minutes.