What are the issues in changing gear oil in the Dana axles with a oil pump from the fill hole?

RTV is gravy. does anybody remember Indian head? do a 1/2 dozen thermostats they used that on and you'll be happy to go at some RTV with a blade.
 
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Jerry Bransford said:
X2 to those recommending you pull the cover when changing the gear lube. Only then can you see if there's any damage to the gears or if there's metallic reside laying in the bottom of the housing.

This job is not time consuming enough to feel the need to rush it by resorting to sucking the old gear lube out which doesn't get the bottom debris out.
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As usual Jerry is very correct ! If your going to do a job take the time to do it right!
 
Suppose that depends on how solidified the sludge is. In the 200+ vehicles we've had plenty of them have a good 1/4" recessed belly in the diffs that oil will not drain from so a simple rag or skinny finger gets it cleaned out of any remaining oil or debris laying there. But you knew that of course. Ya think you get 100% of the engine oil out when you pull the plug on a pan? No, not even close is my point.
 
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Gilaguy23 said:
Suppose that depends on how solidified the sludge is. In the 200+ vehicles we've had plenty of them have a good 1/4" recessed belly in the diffs that oil will not drain from so a simple rag or skinny finger gets it cleaned out of any remaining oil or debris laying there. But you knew that of course. Ya think you get 100% of the engine oil out when you pull the plug on a pan? No, not even close is my point.
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Mine has never been sludge, but I've noticed that recess in the bottom of my HP30. It holds a surprising volume of oil there.
 
Is it sufficient to pump it out every other service interval? I’ve always just removed the cover, but would like to know.
 
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JMT said:
Is it sufficient to pump it out every other service interval? I’ve always just removed the cover, but would like to know.
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On a street driven vehicle I'm totally on board with that. But my wife's 4runner has a drain plug, go figure.

But when I think about my Jeep, there's a lot of situations that make me want to pull it. Like the fact that my gears aren't factory, and are still pretty fresh. Or if I go through a water crossing above hub depth, I don't want any water getting left behind. Or that with my tuck and SYE, my axle is rotated up so high that I have to go by volume through the vent tube to fill it, and if I'm not sure how much I could have left inside, I don't really know how much to add.

I think schedule B in the service manual calls for something like a 12k mile interval. If your gears are established and you haven't done anything that could contaminate it, I don't see how it could really hurt.
 
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freedom_in_4low said:
On a street driven vehicle I'm totally on board with that. But my wife's 4runner has a drain plug, go figure.

But when I think about my Jeep, there's a lot of situations that make me want to pull it. Like the fact that my gears aren't factory, and are still pretty fresh. Or if I go through a water crossing above hub depth, I don't want any water getting left behind. Or that with my tuck and SYE, my axle is rotated up so high that I have to go by volume through the vent tube to fill it, and if I'm not sure how much I could have left inside, I don't really know how much to add.

I think schedule B in the service manual calls for something like a 12k mile interval. If your gears are established and you haven't done anything that could contaminate it, I don't see how it could really hurt.
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I’ve got 24,000 miles on the gears. I can see your point about water possibly getting inside. The inner diff seals should stop that though, right, under normal usage, water crossings up to the headlights. 🤣
 
AMS417 said:
I used to work at a garage when I was a kid. We used a vac pump to suck oil out of diffs all the time. If it wasn’t leaking, no reason to pull the cover. Way faster too. You won’t get all the oil, but 99% of it.
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Reason #273 Why I won't take my vehicles to 99% of shops.
 
I had a small leak on my rear cover, I would have pulled anyways for piece of mind. I have a drain and probably won’t pull on the next one.
 
At the very least, I'd much rather have a diff cover with a drain, even if I need/want to pull it (the cover) so I don't have to deal with the glorious mess of NOT having a drain plug.
 
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