nytennisaddict

Hopefully you'll either learn from my mistakes and/or are entertained by them!

Victim: 2009 Rubicon 2dr

Mistake #1. I was replacing my stock diff covers with the ARB diff covers. While I love how stout they are, I really hate the location of the fill hole. On OE (original equipment) covers, the fill hole is idiot (me) proof, because if you can't overfill the diffs with fluid (eg. it starts pouring out when it's full). Somehow I had a dyslexic moment, and filled my front diffs to 2 quarts (reread later it's 1+ a bit to refill). I had a nagging feeling that I may have overfilled it (I've read a dozen times on here not to overfill the diffs), but since I was in a rush I decided not to correct the issue. On a 60 mile drive, I was treated to the sweet smell of diff fluid as it spewed out the breather (fortunately I had also raised all my breather tubes that day, and as a "precaution" rerouted the breather down towards the ground (and not up into facing the engine hood).

Mistake #2. I worked on changing the rear diff cover after fixing the overfill issue. After getting the new cover on, and torquing down the bolts (which including jacking up the body several times to move the track bar out of the way of some of the bolts), I was doing a dry run of how I was going to position the capped Royal Purple bottle from the rear (the front I filled from the top through the engine hood with a tube attached to the bottle). Did I mention that the bottle was capped? Fortunately I noticed the bottle was missing the cap when I pulled it out... so I had to remove the cover (jack up the body a couple times), and redo the process.

Share your own stories, or feel free to flame... I guess mistakes like this are a right of passage... either way I was laughing about it while enjoying a cold one!

MFX

Oh well, you learn from your mistakes I guess. Fortunately for you, it wasn't too costly. On the bright side, I learned what not to do thanks to you

metaulic

hahaha! I make mistakes all the time too! I call myself narrow minded sometimes and I forget to stop to take a look around and look at the big picture. What I notice helps is that when I get to the point where I cant find anything (like my wrench, bolts, parts etc) I do a quick clean up and get re-organized and tackle things again. i notice this increases my patience, allows me to work longer and happier and in turn make less mistakes and therefore do a better job.

My biggest mistake was forgetting to tighten my front lug nuts and my drivers side wheel fell off.

My second mistake was the starter wire somehow got dislodged and i couldnt start the jeep and after a day i gave up and towed it to the dealer only to find this out. lol

Adam3612

I did that TWICE when I was changing my diff fluid. The second time I almost said eff it and I was gonna leave the cap in there, but then I thought better of it lol.

nytennisaddict

I did something similar... working in front of my house, I lined up all my tools, and tried to put them back in the same spot after using it... I'm sure it looked looked funny to onlookers, and particularly experienced auto techs.

I can definitely see myself doing that - hopefully not anymore after reading you doing it!

thx for sharing.

nytennisaddict

I seriously considered leaving it, thinking that no way a plastic cap could do any damage to these massive gears, then thought that after it gets ground down, pieces will likely end up in some crevice and cause issues.

While it sucks that it happened to you, I'm a bit at ease knowing I'm not the only one that made that mistake - I'm just glad we both realized it happened (it's easy to miss the fact that the matching yellow cap on a royal purple bottle is missing, especially if you haven't cut the top of it yet.

nytennisaddict

For me, the mess it makes is enough reason not to overfill :P

Don't take my word for it, but I read in other threads, that because the diff cavity heats up so much there is alot of pressure, and when you overfill, the fluid (while maybe not enough to spew out), might block the vent, in turn putting unnecessary stress on the axle seals over time (presumably increasing the chance of causing those to fail prematurely).

But like you, I was thinking it's probably better to err on the side of overfilling rather than underfilling (and just let the diff equalize the pressure of the added oil itself, and deal with the subsequent mess).

Another thing I learned, is that raising your breather tubes (which i had done prior to changing my diff covers) not only prevents water from getting into the axle, but also gives you more slack in the tubing to manipulate where they are pointing (eg. I can redirect them down toward the ground vs. up into the engine bay - right after changing my diff fluids again!)

Mark Doiron

I know this is true for engine oil, and assume it's true for the diffy's: Getting lube high up on the gears (crankshaft, in the case of engines) can cause it be beat (think of eggs) and get foamy. And foam is not as good a lubricant as oil.