What do you folks use to clean the internal portion of your differential when doing an oil change?
DIFFERENTIAL CLEANING
- Thread starter westex39
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I usually throw some paper towels over the carrier in case any debris gets knocked/blown in there, then use clean rags or more paper towels to wipe out the bottom of the diff.
Joel
Joel
Joel,
Have you ever used any type of spray solvent to clean the gears of an assembled differential?
Have you ever used any type of spray solvent to clean the gears of an assembled differential?
I use a solvent spray gun made by Snap On and mineral spirit's or ZVoc (a Cummins engine degreaser or was that Caterpillar). Flush out and then dry off with blow gun to remove all solvet.
I have sprayed brake cleaner on a rag to clean off the magnet in the belly of a jeep diff once. The magnet is on the inside of the cover on trailblazers. Pretty much only the diff cover was dirty. I hit the inside of the cover with a rag and some mineral spirits. Mineral spirits cleaned it right up.
Joel
Joel
JHZR2
Staff member
There was a good thread over on mercedesshop.com a few years back, where the owner of a MB diesel with 2-300k on it took off the cover on his diff (on MB cars, you dodnt normally do this unless you need to re-seal it). It was quite dirty, so he ran Mobil1 diff fluid in it for some time, and then re-opened it to check. The difference was great! The diff was SIGNIFICANTLY cleaner, just from running the M1 diff fluid and changing it properly.
Good fluid is what I use for cleaning the differential.
Actually, I found the old post, from 2001, and my story was a bit off, but the unfortunate parrt is that the pictures are no longer there... oh well, it is described quite will in words:
http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=23471&highlight=differential
JMH
Good fluid is what I use for cleaning the differential.
Actually, I found the old post, from 2001, and my story was a bit off, but the unfortunate parrt is that the pictures are no longer there... oh well, it is described quite will in words:
http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=23471&highlight=differential
JMH
I have run Auto-RX in the diff of my '91 Volvo 740 turbo (230K). I suspected there was a bunch of crud in there messing up the speedo sensor. Before running the Auto-RX, the speedo would only register intermittently. Now it's registering most of the time; there are still some intermittent episodes, but it's probably 75% better than it was.
"Good fluid is what I use for cleaning the differential."
This may seem a dumb question but I'll ask anyway. Why in the world would you want to waste expensive synthetic oil to clean out a differential?
Use a cleaner that is designed for cleaning and save the oil for lubricating. If you already have the diff cover off it would only take one can of 99 cent brake cleaner and a handfull of paper towels to clean it out.
This may seem a dumb question but I'll ask anyway. Why in the world would you want to waste expensive synthetic oil to clean out a differential?
Use a cleaner that is designed for cleaning and save the oil for lubricating. If you already have the diff cover off it would only take one can of 99 cent brake cleaner and a handfull of paper towels to clean it out.
I never intended to use synthetic oil to clean the differential. I plan to drain the oil and use some sort of cleaner/degreaser to get the residual oil and any deposits washed out.
regards
westex
regards
westex
I use brake cleaner or carb cleaner, and good wipe out with some clean shop rags, and let it dry/evaporate. Even with premium syn, I get build up in my Jeep's Dana 35c.
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