Greetings, Now that I have the brakes working and all shiny new, thanks to you guys. I need something else to break, er umm fix. I have been looking into draining and refilling the differentials. I have 4x4 so I want to do the front and the back. Though I have not seen the fill plug. I know how to drain it. Basically just start unbolting the cover. I just want to make sure I can fill it up again. I saw a video on youtube that showed the fill plug on the opposite side of the pan. However I don't know what truck that was for. Is there a fill plug?

Where are the fill plugs?

What is the best spray to clean gunk out of it?

Is there a gasket I should use? Or just some RTV?

If not, what color RTV? Some seem to use blue, others black.

And finally what is the best fluid to refill with? The rear one has ABS.

 

More info:

The rear diff has 10 bolts.

The door sticker says it is a 19.

It appears to have a fill plug just over the center line on the front of the unit. It looks like a 3/8" extension will fit in there.

 

The back is easy to do, just unbolt the cover, drain the fluid, clean the gasket sufaces and you can use either black RVT, or a Felpro gasket and RVT like I did.

The fill plug is on the upper right hand side on the front of the diff that you use the 3/8" extension to open it up. Because your axle is non-LS, you can use 80w-90 gear oil or choose to use 75W-140 syntech. Its 5.5 qt for the rear.

The front is trickier, because there is no cover on the TTB axle to take off. Alot of people will suck out the old fluid using a hand pump because if you remove the carrier bolts, you will have to remove the front axle shafts and replace the gasket.

If you choose to suck the old fluid out, fill it with 3.9 qt of 80W-90.

 

Kickass! thanks for the info Silver!

 

Whoops i just re-read my post I got the fluid capacity wrong.


front is 3.9pt (1.8 was in L)

Rear is 5.5pt (I read that in L as well)

Sorry for that! Damn Metric conversion