Looking for confirmation or advice. I’ve been hearing noises from the rear end lately (just read that back and I’m only talking about the Jeep) and decided to pull the diff cover off and make sure everything was good in there. It is, but when I drained it only 1.5 quarts came out. The manual calls for 2.37 in the rear but the fill hole only allows 1.5 before it starts leaking out. My suspicion is that since I have a 5 inch lift on it, that tilted the axle down which lowers the position of the fill hole. I have an HP fill hole above it that I could use to get more oil in there but I def don’t want to overdo it. I also suspect that some of the noise was because the diff was almost a quart low. Am I on the right path here?
Rear diff (Dana 44) only holding 1.5 quarts
- Thread starter Ryandou
- Start date
The high lift will do that and could keep the pinion bearings from getting the proper lube. You could jack the rear up as high as you feel safe to do and try to put more lube in.
Jack it so the fill hole is “level” again? I should also note that it has a locker in there, but it should still take 2.37 quarts correct?
The locker may change the volume slightly, but not by more than an ounce or two.
The bigger concern, to me, is that the increased pinion angle may be causing your pinion gear to be oil starved. The pinion angle should have been corrected when the lift was installed. Since you're under there anyway, I'd get it corrected before I did anything else. You should be able to get sims easily enough, and YouTube will have a bazillion videos to show you how to determine the correct angle.
This might help. Which of these best matches your pinion angle?
