rear axle oil level

[Arberg0]

From:jddrivfour  (Original Message) Sent: 4/12/2005 1:10 AM

Evidently, after removing brake drums, you cannot just refill the rear axle to the filler plug level as this is not high enough to cause oil to fill the cavities for the bearings. Guess i was "lucky" my brake cylinder started leaking soon after I did my bearing. When I pulled the axle over the weekend it and the bearings were running dry. I am thinking of putting an elbow and extension in the filler hole and overfilling the axle. then letting it drain back out. Any ideas?

JD


   

From: denison Sent: 4/12/2005 7:52 PM
I hope that having packed the rear wheel bearings with grease would be enough to keep them till the diff. fluid made its way out to the end of the axle. Since that is what I have done the two times I had my rear hubs off. I make sure the fluid is up to the plug level after I am done, but I dont add more above that.
Any "extra" that you put in should just run out the axle tube on long corners, or high- crowned roads, and what ever amount of it gets past the seal, is -Supposed- to run out the "slinger" spaces between the drum and the hub, and then splatter around the inside of your outer rear wheels. Thats if your "slinger" spaces werent filled up with muck, in which case the diff. fluid might get onto the inside of the brake drums.
The fluid from the differential runs along the spinning axle I believe, and slowly makes it way to the end of the axle tube, where the larger diameter of the hub forms a reservoir for some diff. fluid. That is what dribbled out when you had the hubs off. If I pulled a hub and none of that oil dribbled out - then I would worry!
If you really want to overfill the differential, you could do that by removing the breather bolt and pouring it down into the axle tube.
I figure if it was any kind of problem, the service manual would get specific about it.