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Is a Starbucks frappuccino a good substitute for differential fluid?
Stock Grand Cherokee Tech. All ZJ/WJ/WK Non-modified/stock questions go here!ZJ (93-98), WJ (99-04), WK (05+)
All ZJ/WJ/WK specific tech questions asked here!
That's water! Is this a recent purchase? I'm thinking it was a flood car. Maybe from Sandy? OR the front end was sitting in water for a while. Have you forded any streams lately?
Flush it out with kerosene, inspect the gears, then fill it with dinosaur molasses. (90W) Check the vent tube for even being there. The axle shaft seals are just outside the carrier bearings.
Sorry for not mentioning, it's the same old '96 ZJ, and that's a Dana 30 up front. I bought it less than a year ago in Maryland and have kept it above the water since. Vent tube is there, though not routed correctly. Trying to figure out where the bracket goes before just zip tying it somewhere convenient.
Found some Mobil 1 75W-90 Synthetic Gear Lube for about half off. Just waiting on me getting all of the old stuff out. I'll give kerosene a try since nothing else is working and I don't want to disassemble the whole thing just yet. Would diesel work just as well? I have some of it lying around.
Yeah, diesel will work just fine. I've washed engine parts in kerosene, rinsed with a garden hose, then sun dried them and they come up squeaky clean. And yeah, I saw the "turdy!" Even my WJ has one!
Looking pretty good! I used the vent hose to siphon diesel in there with the cover on to fill it nearly to the top. Left the top of the cover slightly loose to vent the air.
The tooth wear pattern looks pretty normal. Full face, full depth contact with no obvious gauling. I'd say you're good to go.
IDK how much off-roading you do, but I saw something on a Discovery Channel show called "Junkyard Wars." Teams were given a devise to build and a time limit, plus a huge junkyard to scavenge parts in. One team took the cover off a diff it weld up the spiders, then couldn't figure out how to put the lube back in. They poured it into zip-lock sandwich bags and crammed them in, putting the cover back on. Ingenious! Something to keep in mind if you're ever out on a trail and have to open a diff! The sandwich bags were from their lunch!
Ah I was actually going to ask about that. There was one point in the flushing/rinsing process where the contact marks were perfectly clear. Stupid me didn't take a picture. Thanks for the expert eye - I can hardly tell from those pictures.
Not much off-roading with this one yet. Have a few more initial repairs I want to take care of first. Actually, once I put in some new rear bushings and fix a coolant leak, I think I will trust it for more than commuting.
I like the bag idea though. Wonder if you could make a bag out of a material that would dissolve in differential fluid after a few minutes and also serve as a component of the lubrication once dissolved... Just measure it out, tie off the top, and throw it in. No more fill/drain plugs to leak.
02-09-2017, 10:15 PM
Is a Starbucks frappuccino a good substitute for differential fluid?
