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Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet.
Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing and maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20+ year's experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.
We're going to change the rear differential fluid in this S10. You might see the need to do this if you've been driving in rainy or wet conditions quite a bit. That's what happened up here in the Northeast. This March of 2010 we had about 5 consecutive days of rain and it looks like the differential on this truck got some water into it.
So tools you need are a wrench. You'll need probably a 3/8 drive to get the plug out, or a wrench to get the plug out and then this truck has 1/2 inch bolts holding the differential cover on, then a screwdriver, and then various tools to clean up the differential and the cover which would be a razor blade, sand paper maybe, and maybe some steel wool.
As I checked the rear differential fluid basically it's just a little plug that you use a 3/8 drive ratchet and take the plug out, and then I just stuck my finger down in there, and now what you can see is a bunch of foam. That indicates to me that a lot of water got into the rear end at some time and that's not really doing a good job lubricating the rear end so what we're going to do is we're going to just pull off the back cover and basically just change the rear differential fluid.
So to change the fluid you have to remove this differential cover. So the first step is to make sure you got the right gasket, and I'm going to answer the next question right now. Yes, use a gasket. Don't just try and use RTV sealant. Gasket costs nothing compared to if you use RTV and then you develop a leak, you lose all your fluid, and then you have to replace a differential. So I'm going to remove these 10 bolts. Then just use a screwdriver. You want to make sure you have a nice big wide pan to catch all the stuff. Then once you have it off, and you can see, actually I can see the problem. I would bet that this did leak some water down into itself. Here's the reason why you're going to need to put a new differential cover on. This is actually the top, and you can see how far down the rust has penetrated and I've tried to scrape this off somewhat, but this has just gotten so rough that it's a good possibility the gasket won't seal and I'm pretty sure on this rear end the reason the fluid in it was so foamy because water got into the differential and mixed with the fluid. Basically, that's the reason why you probably want to put a new differential cover on to get a good seal, and you also just want to make sure you scrape as well as you can around the differential and use a gasket and use good gasket sealant on it too.
So you can see I've cleaned off my differential pretty good. I used some sand paper and some steel wool. Don't worry about getting little particles of stuff. Obviously avoid getting as much stuff in here as possible. You want to avoid getting anything big in here, but if you get some little stuff in there you just use a rag and basically before you put new fluid before you close it back up, you're going to wipe it all down anyways. Try and pull as much of this bad stuff out as possible.
So you can see here. Here's my differential cover all cleaned up. I've put gasket sealant on it. Go ahead and put gasket sealant onto the differential itself. What you do is you put a bead on and basically you just follow the directions on the sealant. Oop. I don't want to get any in there. Just follow the directions on the sealant what it says to do is basically put it on, let it get tacky, and then put it together. So I put the bead on. I'm just going to take my finger and kind of smooth it out. I want to kind of avoid getting it up too close to the differential and what not, and the same thing on my cover, take my finger and just kind of smooth it out right around.
So now here's my differential cover and you'll notice I've put two bolts in. Those bolts don't have the bracket so they're kind of holding the gasket so that when I kind of slip this up in here I don't have to worry about the gasket walking away from me. Start that one a little bit. Get that one started. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put two bolts in down here and make sure that gasket's still kind of in the right spot. Now I'm going to put all my bolts in.
So I've got my torque wrench. I've got it set on 25 foot pounds, and I'm going to go in a criss-crossing pattern. Then after I've done that I'm just going to check them just go right around clockwise. Now we're going to fill up the rear end. I've already put one of these in. Generally these take, I think, about one and a half of these bottles, and I was wrong because it did take two and a half bottles. I can tell you for sure that the lubrication this is providing is a whole lot better than that foamy stuff that you saw at the beginning, and I'll keep putting it in there until I, oop, so there it comes out. So I'll just stick the plug back in, and we'll tighten that up and we're ready to go.
So we got the plug in and we're all set. One good thing to do is just take your rag and just wipe down real good all under here, all under here. Note whether or not up in here if your pinion seal is leaking. If your pinion seal's leaking, you'll see a bunch of fluid coming from there, and just note how dry it is down here because after you test drive it after you've put 50, 60, 100 miles on it just come down here and make sure you're not leaking. Also a good idea to get back under here after 100 miles or so and just tighten up the bolts again one more time just to make sure they're all tight. So that's how you do it.
We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Please feel free to call us toll free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the internet and in person.
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Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.
Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and, please, next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com.
In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the rear differential cover on this 2002 Chevy Suburban. The items that you'll need for this are a new rear differential cover from 1AAuto.com, 13 mm socket and ratchet with an extension, 3/8 inch ratchet, hammer and cold chisel, vacuum, razor blade, rags, wire brush, drip pan, differential fluid, and jack and jack stands.
The rear differential cover is right up under back here. We do have the spare tire removed on this suburban. That makes it a little easier. The bolts on our vehicle are pretty rust, and that's usually what happens. These differential covers actually rust out. What we're doing is using a cold chisel and just knocking the scale off of each side of the bolt. Now, the bolts are actually 13mm, but what we've found is since we took that scale off, it's slightly smaller, so we're driving a 1/2 inch socket on there. That gives it a good enough grip to get them all out. We'll just repeat that process for all ten of the bolts. Make sure you have a drip pan below the differential cover before you remove the last of the bottom bolts. You want to just remove those. Using your chisel, just hammer out on the bottom of the differential cover. Then replace the bolt at the top of the differential cover. Then use your chisel and hammer again on the other side. Just let the fluid drain out. After it's drained for a while, just pry out on the bottom and remove that bolt. Then pull the cover down and out.
If any debris falls down inside of here, as you can see right there, you just want to vacuum all of it out. Then take a rag, make sure it's somewhat clean and just wipe everything down. Just stick this rag back in there. Then using a razor blade, just cut off that old gasket along the outside. Then, just use a wire brush to get any leftover residue of the gasket.
The new differential cover from 1Aauto does come with a gasket, but we use a small bead of RTV on each side of the gasket just to make sure it has a good seal. Just make sure it's pressed down into place and then trace it with more RTV.
Make sure there's no fluid on the outside here. Then take your differential cover and feed it up into place. You want to just replace the top bolt to hold it in. Then, we'll just fast forward as he replaces the rest of the bolts. Make sure for this top bolt that you put this harness back into place. Then let the gasket sit for a minute, if you used RTV. Then, tighten each of those bolts up. Then you want to just torque each of these to 15 foot pounds in a crossing pattern.
Now remove this filler plug using your 3/8 ratchet. Ours is in kind of rough condition, so I'm just going to hammer the ratchet into place. Then just remove that plug. Now replace the differential fluid. You want to do this until it starts to pour over the side. When it starts to pour over the side, you just put your pink in there, make sure the fluid's right to the top of the filler hole. If it is, then you're all set. You can replace your cap. Just tighten that up with your ratchet, and you're all set.
We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.
