Rear Diff Fluid Change Help

jfab1165 · August 12, 2008

Can the rear diff fluid be changed with a suction pump instead of taking off the rear cover? Is this a good way to do this?

rickfinn123 · August 12, 2008

Can the rear diff fluid be changed with a suction pump instead of taking off the rear cover? Is this a good way to do this?

That is what I just did!

96 1500, 151000 miles.

Old lube came out looking very good, so I don't think I need to pop off cover to scrape out any sludge. If brown chunkies came out, I would have pulled off the cover to look closer.

my 2 cents.

Rick

bossier62guy · August 12, 2008

Can the rear diff fluid be changed with a suction pump instead of taking off the rear cover? Is this a good way to do this?

No drain plug on an 04?

bobf1234 · August 12, 2008

Can the rear diff fluid be changed with a suction pump instead of taking off the rear cover? Is this a good way to do this?

No drain plug on an 04?

Nope...

And if you've never changed it before, I would highly suggest taking the cover off. Its really not that hard.

You will want to see the cover magnet to see how much metal is on there and get it all off.

bossier62guy · August 12, 2008

Can the rear diff fluid be changed with a suction pump instead of taking off the rear cover? Is this a good way to do this?

No drain plug on an 04?

Nope...

And if you've never changed it before, I would highly suggest taking the cover off. Its really not that hard.

You will want to see the cover magnet to see how much metal is on there and get it all off.

My 02 has a drain plug but I also pulled the cover because the gasket was leaking a little. Not a thing on the magnet and would have been a waste of time had it not been leaking.

jfab1165 · August 12, 2008

No drain plug on mine.

If I take cover off do I need to get a replacement gasket?

bossier62guy · August 12, 2008

No drain plug on mine.

If I take cover off do I need to get a replacement gasket?

Yes

2000DV4.8 · August 12, 2008

Just FYI, they got rid of the drain plug in '03 (when they changed the front end).

bossier62guy · August 12, 2008

Just FYI, they got rid of the drain plug in '03 (when they changed the front end).

Too bad for those guys....

2000DV4.8 · August 12, 2008

.

jneal · August 13, 2008

No drain plug on mine.

If I take cover off do I need to get a replacement gasket?

just use High temp RTV

crepitus · August 13, 2008

No drain plug on mine.

If I take cover off do I need to get a replacement gasket?

just use High temp RTV

thats what i did. just changed mine last month. Takes a little more then 3 quarts. hardest part was cleaning off the old gasket.

CapitalTruck · August 15, 2008

I did my rear diff (04) last month also. Man, when I took that cover off there was a big pile of real dense (what I think was) grease on the magnet. Maybe that was some kind of metal/grease combo. Whatever it was, it was easy as heck to do. Advice: Make sure you can get the fill plug out before you take off the cover. (somebody posted once that they took off the cover, dumped all their juice, and couldn't refill. That's no fun. Also, for the rear end Valvoline Synthetic 75-90 meets all the GM specs (I called valvoline and gave them the spec. number). It's about 1/3 the price of the recommended GM.