Water in Rear Diff??

Well today in upstate new york we got flooded again, but this time worse than that whore Irene. I went outside to go to my cabin from college, and the parking lot was a river. my truck sat in water almost 2 1/2 ft deep. my only option is to push through it to get out. It was bad, bec guess whats sitting in my back seat; all the materials to do the Rear Diff Breather Mod.... Fucking bastard i was too lazy and busy to do it.... how do i know if i have water in my rear diff without changing out the oil?? oh and after going pretty much though a river my brakes felt funny and were really stiff.. why??

 

nobodyyy??

 

I was worried about the same thing because after Irene I was traveling in water that was up over my diffs. Today I changed the fluid in my rear diff and didn't notice anything that resembled water coming out, I figured better safe then sorry. While I was at it I did the rear diff breather re-locator too, very easy only took me about 1/2 hour. I would say while your doing your rear diff breather you might as well change the fluid, just my two cents.

 

yeah i guess im just going to have to go home this weekend and change my fluid, and yeah I did my brother tacoma in colorado with the rear diff breather and it was easy as hell, but ive just been busy with starting school

 

What do you want us to say?
So change your diff oil already....

 

if you want to find out if you diff fluid is contaminated. Crack open the drain bolt and drain it out. Oil and water can not mix, so water will be floating on the top. If all looks normal you can reuse the fluid (I don't recommend reusing any fluid).

I say drain it anyways and change out the fluid, save you headache and any possible doubts.

do the breather mod. it'll put you more at ease.

 

totally off topic... but did you take a boat to class or walk through the water?

 

well Mr smarty pants, i was wondering if there was an different way to check it

 

alright ill do that thankss

 

haha well it was more like a flash flood, but i could have taken a boat to my truck after classes got cancelled.... little cars got messed up bad lol... thank god for lifted trucks

 

Well, sorry for only trying to help you out...lol.

 

x2

and also, please remove your fill plug BEFORE you pull the drain plug

 

I can't think of much that I would rather do than kayak to class

 

haha, ive done something similar to that before!



and if it makes you feel any better OP, before i found out about that mod, i drove through water up to my headlights over a dozen times, been muddin in a watery mix up to tha doors more than i can count and when i finally changed the diff fluid it looked pretty normal to me! So from my experience the breather mod is a fail safe kinda thing but not necessarily needed! Hopefully you have the same luck as me

 

If the water covered the rear axle while the truck was parked and not driven in it hot, then you are probably fine. Water gets in the diff. IF the diff. is hot and you drive through deep water. Water does not enter through the stock breater on top of the diff unless the spring inside is removed (it is a one way check valve and really not a breather).

 

my experiance with older 4x4s is they have a filler plug u could just pop that off and stick your pinky down in there to see if the oil had water in it. 90w with water in it turns creamy/milky white.

 

If the oil has water mixed with it and you have ran it a lot it should look milky.Expect early failure of weel bearings also.Those seals keep grease in but sometimes let water in.Milky oil is a good sign of water in differentials,transfer case,engine and transmission.

 

just change it. if it has the original oil in it youll want to change it anyway since during the vehicle break in the diff oil will get dirty. i never wait till the 60k like they say in the manual

 

No pics of the flooded parking lot? You fail man, you fail.

 

Haha I was in a rush bec University PD was just about to close down the road lol Ill see if i can find any on FB