Resealing a Differential Cover
Ever since I put the 4.11 gears in Jenny’s Jeep her pink diff cover has had a slight leak. Not much, but enough to make a spot in her parking lot and leave a trail on the gas tank.
We tried tightening the bolts a little more. We tried waiting to see if it would seal its self like some new leaks do. But this one just kept dripping.
Rather than use the method I had learned years ago from Marcus at go.Jeep-xj.info, I had followed the instructions on the RTV tube. This method obviously did not work as well as the method I have used in the past that had never leaked.
We began by lifting the Jeep and preparing a clean catch pan for the diff oil. I was curious to take a look in side the differential anyway to see how the new gears looked.
The RTV had made an excellent seals on most of the cover as it was very hard to get off. The Blue Torch Fabworks cover had no flex like the stock cover so it all has to break loose at once. I had to use a chisel to pop it loose.
With the cover off, the unsealed spot was obvious. The RTV was separated between two bolts on the one side that leaked.
After scraping both surface clean, I applied a thin coat of RTV to the cover. I wiped down the differential housing carefully and made sure that the oil did not continue to drip out at the bottom. I let the RTV skin over for about five minutes before carefully setting the cover in place and starting two bolts so that it did not slide.
I checked the torque specs on the replacements bolts I had for the cover and set my torque wrench. I don’t normally use a torque wrench on the cover bolts but I wanted to make sure this one did not leak a second time. I toqued the bolts evenly in a crisscross pattern.
After letting the RTV set up a few minutes longer we refilled the housing with gear oil. We put some pipe dope on the plug and sealed it up. So far there are no leaks.
If it leaks again I will consider the Lube Locker gasket:
