I started my knuckle rebuild today and I ran into a problem with my front diff fluid. I went to drain my diff and pulled the drain plug and almost nothing came out. I removed the fill plug and a little more came out. The fluid was the thickness of like ketchup. From my understanding there should be like 3 quarts in there. Maybe 1 came out. I know I had at least one bad axle seal as there was a ton of grease caked on brake assembly’s and everything really. I haven’t had the truck for too long and really i was just doing this because I was pretty sure the axle seals were bad. The stuff in the knuckle looked the same as the stuff that came out the diff. I haven’t had any problems with knuckle or diff I just was doing preventative maintenance.
Can I just finish rebuilding both knuckles and put it all back together with new axle seals, wipers, bearings and whatnot? I was thinking of doing a couple of fluid changes on the diff when I get it all back together. Like change and drive a couple hundred miles and change again.
My main question is do I need to pull the diff apart? It looks like a pain in the ass. Would a couple of fluid changes rinse all that grease out sufficiently?
Thanks
Can I just finish rebuilding both knuckles and put it all back together with new axle seals, wipers, bearings and whatnot? I was thinking of doing a couple of fluid changes on the diff when I get it all back together. Like change and drive a couple hundred miles and change again.
My main question is do I need to pull the diff apart? It looks like a pain in the ass. Would a couple of fluid changes rinse all that grease out sufficiently?
Thanks