BlackSheepRebel
Senior Member
I'm working with the vendor to get this resolved, but before working all the way through that and getting a replacement, I wanted to fish for opinions...
Decided to service my rear diff this weekend. Got the Valvoline 75w-140 in the flex packs with the anti-slip additive included. This will be easy, right?
No problems getting the factory cover off. Decided to upgrade to the B&M cover since I've had good luck with B&M products in the past and this one isn't flat backed, has a magnetic drain plug, holds an extra 1/2 quarter of fluid, and looks decent. I've watched videos of it being swapped, and mostly had no problems other than needing to drop my sway bar and remove the bolt in one side of my panhard bar to be able to reach all the bolts. Not a big deal.
The problem came when torquing the fill plug. It's only 25lb/ft, and I used the same torque wrench and allen socket on all the other bolts on the cover without issue. The fill plug rounded off before even getting to 25lb/ft. WTH?
Given how long it took me to get my suspension dialed in, by now I've learned to laugh at myself so I was going to just leave it and use the factory drain plug next time. Turns out I can't do that either though, because the plug also has a slow leak even though I wrapped it with a couple layers of pipe thread tape per instructions. Not sure if it's tapped wrong or just can't get the right torque on it due to being rounded it off. Made me think, because the load bolts they provide were also very hard to thread in even after cleaning the threads with break clean and working them in/out a few times by hand. The bolts themselves had what looked like minor thread imperfections.
I'm willing to say this is my own stupidity (not sure why all the other bolts torqued just fine, and it rounded off completely not on one side or at an angle, my allen socket looks fine...so not 100% sure I could have wrenched better but maybe?) or even just a one-off...even good manufacturers have occasional lemons. Wondering if anyone else has used this diff cover and has good or bad experiences with it? I am talking to the vendor now about a swap, but if anyone has bad experiences to share I might just cut my losses and clean up and reuse the factory cover.
Thanks!
Decided to service my rear diff this weekend. Got the Valvoline 75w-140 in the flex packs with the anti-slip additive included. This will be easy, right?
No problems getting the factory cover off. Decided to upgrade to the B&M cover since I've had good luck with B&M products in the past and this one isn't flat backed, has a magnetic drain plug, holds an extra 1/2 quarter of fluid, and looks decent. I've watched videos of it being swapped, and mostly had no problems other than needing to drop my sway bar and remove the bolt in one side of my panhard bar to be able to reach all the bolts. Not a big deal.
The problem came when torquing the fill plug. It's only 25lb/ft, and I used the same torque wrench and allen socket on all the other bolts on the cover without issue. The fill plug rounded off before even getting to 25lb/ft. WTH?
Given how long it took me to get my suspension dialed in, by now I've learned to laugh at myself so I was going to just leave it and use the factory drain plug next time. Turns out I can't do that either though, because the plug also has a slow leak even though I wrapped it with a couple layers of pipe thread tape per instructions. Not sure if it's tapped wrong or just can't get the right torque on it due to being rounded it off. Made me think, because the load bolts they provide were also very hard to thread in even after cleaning the threads with break clean and working them in/out a few times by hand. The bolts themselves had what looked like minor thread imperfections.
I'm willing to say this is my own stupidity (not sure why all the other bolts torqued just fine, and it rounded off completely not on one side or at an angle, my allen socket looks fine...so not 100% sure I could have wrenched better but maybe?) or even just a one-off...even good manufacturers have occasional lemons. Wondering if anyone else has used this diff cover and has good or bad experiences with it? I am talking to the vendor now about a swap, but if anyone has bad experiences to share I might just cut my losses and clean up and reuse the factory cover.
Thanks!