I've noticed that my CAD is leaking at the housing. I went to remove it and also found a frozen bolt. Anyway, my Ram is slowly teaching me auto repair. So my questions are:

Is it necessary to replace my axle seal too? (in addition to my gasket at the CAD housing) or is there supposed to be diff oil in the CAD?

What about getting the frozen bolt out? Should I heat it with a torch or is the oil going to catch fire and lead to disaster?

Thanks.

 

The CAD uses the fluid you put in the diff cover, so no. As far as the frozen bolt goes, it is common for them to break. Good thing is, most of the time just the head breaks off and after the CAD housing is removed you can spray some PB on the broken stud and use a pair of vise grips to work the rest of the bolt out. If not, you'll need to drill , and use an ez out.

 

if the cad bolt isn't broken yet, spray PB blaster on it each day for several days. it might come loose.

when you remove the cad cover, note the stock gasket is a cork/aluminum multilayer contraption. i missed this and kept scraping the cork of the aluminum when i should have put a screwdriver between the aluminum and the cast iron axle housing. duh.

when you put it back together, just use rtv as a gasket. don't overtighten, the bolts are little.

 

Thanks everyone who responded.

I was able to get the broken bolt out with a few light raps to the surrounding area with a deadblow hammer and then grabbing/turning with a pair of vise grips.

I wish I had checked this forum again Saturday morning. I bought the stock gasket from a local Doge dealer for 7.25 or something. They actually said the bolt was a special order part! Huh? A standard course thread hex head bolt is a special order part? I went into a local fastener store and got one and a washer for a quarter.

Fixed! Thanks again to everyone who took the time to respond. Great resource!