Water Crossings

Good Day Taco World!!

I have a question about water crossing when out wheelin.

I have a '21 Off Road, and was out last weekend crawling around some trails and did a number of river crossings and drove down an ephemeral channel, wonderful adventure...

Is there any concern regarding waterproofing of the underbelly components?

A friend of mine mentioned something about water getting into certain areas (Dif ?) and I just want to make sure I am not damaging anything, or if certain maintenance is required, that I complete it.

It is purely recreational at this point, but it still exposes the truck to several short crossings.

Thank you for your help!!

Jordan

 

Anything that contains oil can get contaminated if any seals or breathers fail. Depending on depth, the intake is just inside the right fender liner so there is risk of sucking water there too. That being said, I have spent a lot of time in water up to the rocker and after changing diff fluid, there was no water in it at all. YMMV

 

How deep do you think it was?

 

Many people extend the rear diff breather higher up. Besides that, I purely avoid any water thats going to be higher than halfway up the wheels.

 

Touching the frame, bottom of the doors in some quick dip spots

 

The diff is a concern. The breather is a 1-way breather (only allows pressure out), so when your differential is hot and you submerge it in cool water, it can create a vacuum and pull in contaminates from the axle seals. There are a few posts here on TW where this has happened.

If you wish to continue doing water crossings, I would recommend installing a breather like the one by ARB and install it somewhere high where it will not be submerged.

 

Awesome, thank you for this info! I was just watching a video about doing a breather mod.