Diff Fill Plug Impacting Gears (1 Viewer)

[FIDO96]

During a routine fluid change, I wanted to replace all the original 24MM diff fill plugs with the magnetic hex head ones. When I went to pull the plug on the front fill plug, I found this…apparently the PO used some aftermarket Amazon magnetic plug that appears to have been impacting the front differential gears….the dark jagged tip is a magnet of sorts, and clearly chewed up.

I replaced with an OEM magnetic one. Any concerns the POS one damaged anything?

 

[Malleus]

It's unlikely. The magnet cannot be as hard as the gear teeth.

FWIW, the magnets should be the drain plugs, not the fill plugs.

 

[NeverFinis]

The original drain plug does have a large magnetic protrusion. It looks like the previous owner used the drain plug as a fill plug.

I prefer to run the original OEM drain plug due to its larger magnet but I know many other run the recessed hex head version as a fill and drain plug.

 

[Kernal]

This is what a (new) 80 Series original type differential drain plug should look like:

IME the magnet portion is a type of ??epoxy/plastic/rubber with ferrous particles mixed in then magnetized ie: somewhat similar to a very hard refrigerator magnet, but definitely much softer than a gear tooth. Learned this when modifying an original drain plug by first removing (cutting and drilling out) the original weakish "magnet" then replacing it with a much stronger high temp Neodymium magnet (separate thread to follow).

IMO (if that damaged occurred while the plug was installed) any loose pieces of the original magnet would quickly stick themselves (because they're magnetic) somewhere on the inside of the differential/axle housing and not cause a problem.

FWIW