i recommend you change it and look for any milky white fluid (water). better safe than sorry as water is corrosive.

if you have no water after a couple of your offroad trips, then you can have confidence that water is not getting in, and you can just do regular changes about once every year or two. on the other hand, if you have water after every serious submarine experience, then you know the diff change is just the price you gotta pay.

i drove through a deep creek/river once and after a day or two noticed an axle seal leak that had not previously been there. out of curiosity i drained the fluid and found about 1-2 quarts of water had filled up my diff and triggered the leak. luckily i caught it before any amount of time passed.

on the other hand my brother in law uses his 3500 on the farm and takes it anywhere and everywhere without concern or thoughts of service. when his rear differential failed, it was found to be full of water, and probably had been for a long time. it cost him about $2500 to be rebuilt.

 

Well turns out to be even simpler than i thought. Sprayed down the engine compartment and cleaned her all up. She started and ran just fine at first. I took it for a spin to let it air out and dry, and it started hesitating a little bit on take off, and progressively got worse into where i had to two pedal it to keep it from dying at idle. Well long story short between the water/mud splashing on it and me spraying it, i shorted out the jet chip my dad (i bought the truck off him) had put on it years ago, it messed with the tps sensor and caused the no shifting also. Runs great with just taking that thing off, honestly i think the thing was just a gimmick and didnt really do anything anyway but all is well now.

 

Yeah, JET chips are garbage for these trucks.

I still have a coating of mud in my engine bay from a few years ago. My intake manifold and valve covers are about the only clean thing in there because I've had them off recently.

 

Yeah i honestly notice zero difference from the thing being off. Personally i'd never buy one, but i remember back when my dad put it on several years ago they were pretty popular, before people realized they were junk. It's been on there at least 7-8 years.

 

Since this thread is about off roading, anyone know where i can get some front tow hooks? There really isn't much to hook on to to pull the truck, or pull someone else from the front. Would definitely like to have that for next time.

 

ebay, look for offroad edition tow hooks with brackets looking at like $150 a set

 

The only ones i see on there say they will require cutting on the front fascia for Sport models...which mines is. Really not looking to cut up my front bumper for some tow hooks. Any other ones out there? Or could someone directly link me to some that wont require bumper modifying?

 

Weld some d rings under the front frame rail.

 

for the factory tow hooks - there are some panels in the plastic air dam thing that you would have to cut out to expose the hooks. if you're neat about it, it'll look good. here's a link about it.

i'm assuming the Dsertdog56 author of this pavement article is the same person as our forum member of the same name.... contact him to see if he's got any pictures of the finished job.


http://www.pavementsucks.com/tech-article-38.html

 

you'll be better off without the jet chip.

if you want something simple and easy, look for a superchips. i got one NOS (new old stock) for about $220. you can also find refurb's with warranty, and used, etc. on used - just be SURE its "returned to stock" or its a useless rip-off. i like the superchips because its a mild performance increase, a tire size/speed corrector, and a transmission reprogram. others will tout SCT for more hard core performance (which is true), but unfortunately it doesn't include the speedo correction.

i found a set of used factory tow hooks on ebay for $70, but haven't seen any since. they seem hard to find used. you can buy them new in the 130ish range.