~hanging head in shame~

Every 12K miles, though? I'd have to buy Royal Purple by the case off ebay, lol.

How about the front diff, fluids in the transfer case, and.... and....? man oh man, I do my motor oil correctly!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, always looked for zirks figuring there had to be some way to lube there.

How about the front hubs? far as I can tell, they're dry... my left front seems to go out a lot. I have a shop replace, so they've done it twice in 6 months (second time was free since it didn't last). Any thoughts as to why it fails? ~must be something I didn't lubricate~

Obviously, y'all have a lot to teach me, LOL! I'm willing to learn, trust me.

 

I don't know about the front diff or transfer case. The 4 wheel drive guys can help on that. I just use Valvoline 75W90 conventional gear lube in mine. It costs maybe $5.50 or $6.00 a quart when I can catch it on sale at Napa or Autozone. I can seal my differential cover 2 if not 3 times with one tube of the Permatex gear oil sealant. The odd thing is Napa is the only place around here that carries it. I know there is no lubrication for my front hub/wheel bearing assemblies, they are sealed units but again I have a plain 2 wheel drive truck. 4 wheel drive hubs are probably different from mine. I just greased the axle spindles when I put new hubs on not long ago. The more important thing with hubs is proper torque of the spindle nuts. I found that out the hard and expensive way.

I now own a pretty good 1/2" torque wrench that goes up to 250 ft-lbs so I should not have that problem any more. It is good to use it to torque my lug nuts with it too. I got the torque wrench at Advance, used an online discount code and saved $35.00 on it. It may not be a professional quality tool, but it works great for what I use it for. The rest of the time it is stored in its plastic case in the very top shelf of my tool box, so it is not knocked out of calibration from being in a drawer that gets opened and closed a lot. I have a cheap Harbor Freight 1/2" torque wrench that is only rated up to 150 ft-lbs and a 3/8" torque wrench from Auto Zone too. I got that one nearly for free with my Auto Zone Rewards points. It is good for smaller torque jobs like water pump bolts and valve cover bolts. I keep all 3 torque wrenches in the top of my tool box so they don't go out of specs.

Jimmy

 

Ours is 15 years old, who knows how far out of calib it is. But torquing the main caps is not fun!

 

Just a lil note, remember to wipe off magnet on bottom of rear axle housing..it saves the rear wheel anti-lock brake sensor, keeps it from getting all cluttered up with metal dust

 

Well unless you were very low on oil it may have been one of those things that just happened could be it had bad bearings from day one or contaminated wheel bearings from day one somehow grit/dirt got in the casing or after machining was never flushed 100% perfect.

Sometimes it just happens 75K I think is your first diff oil change out if I remember.

 

Pretty much look at it this way save 260.00 and hope it wont leak then if it does your looking at prob 4-500 to get it done again. So really its a easy decision. Personally I think 12,000 miles between diff oil changes is too much. I could see if you towed a lot then ok thats not bad. Going 20-30k on a fluid change you will see that its still fairly new looking. Ive done vehicles that have never been done in 100k and the oil was dirty other than that everything was in spec like it should of been.

 

The severe service maintenance schedule in my owner's manual says change the diff lube every 12K if you drive in a lot of heavy stop and go traffic and if you drive in hot climates/high temperatures. Around here we have both. The traffic here is bad and it is well over 90 degrees about 8 or 9 months of the year. So I follow the severe service schedule. I am old school and change my oil every 3,000 miles or 6 months, whichever happens first. At 20 bucks for an oil change and maybe 13 bucks for a diff gear oil change I consider it to be cheap insurance. I like to fix problems right away before they get worse, I try my best to fix it right the first time and I do a lot of preventative maintenance ahead of schedule so the problems do not happen in the first place. I have 153,700 miles on my truck now, I have had no problems at all with the axle or differential and no internal problems with the engine either. I try to take good care of my truck so it will take good care of me. It may be overkill but that is just how I see it.

Jimmy

 

I think it all depends. Our 95 grand cherokee was my moms drove it up and down the mountain 5 days a week. 90 miles a day. Replaced the fluid in the rear diff 2 times in 216k. The last time it was change was 215k cause I took the spiders out and welded them for better off roading hahaha It was changed at 90k the first time.

No more wear on the spiders!! haha
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