83ttypecooled
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2003
Hello friends,
I haven't been driving my car much, and when I pulled her out of the shop last weekend, the only bad thing I ran into was a bad snapping clunk in the rear axle. I heard a couple of those initially, figured maybe the anti slip additive was getting weak,so I proceeded to the car show which was my destination.When I pulled into the event,the differential sounded terrible after a few 60 degree turns. I decided to do a couple of 360s to loosen things up, and that seems to have done the trick, no more noises on the way home.
Regardless, I decided to service the rear end. I drained probably a quart or so of gear oil out of it, no metal in the oil or in the axle. Everything looks great in there, but the differential is pretty hard to see into, disassembly would be needed. I'm a strong believer in not fixing what's not broke. I think it's fine, so cleaned and painted the cover, installed a new gasket. I tried to remove the filler plug, and that old thing would not come out. Finally, I punched it out from the inside, and it tore.
Now comes the big headache, because I couldn't find a replacement ANYWHERE. GM tells me the part is discontinued, and gave me a dealership in town that was supposed to still have the plug. They said sorry. I hit all the parts houses, same thing. Finally, I hit a Dodge dealer I use, because I know they use a similar filler plug on their truck rear axles. The parts man was very helpful, matched me up with their part, which has less depth, but seems to be holding in there.Of course, if this plug blows out, I'll have a hell of a mess, and then some. It seems to be secure, but I just wondered what my fellow TTA afficionados have been doing about this maintenance issue.
As a side issue, I elected to use Royal Purple, which costs out the A#$, but comes highly recommended in some circles. What do you think? Thanks!
I haven't been driving my car much, and when I pulled her out of the shop last weekend, the only bad thing I ran into was a bad snapping clunk in the rear axle. I heard a couple of those initially, figured maybe the anti slip additive was getting weak,so I proceeded to the car show which was my destination.When I pulled into the event,the differential sounded terrible after a few 60 degree turns. I decided to do a couple of 360s to loosen things up, and that seems to have done the trick, no more noises on the way home.
Regardless, I decided to service the rear end. I drained probably a quart or so of gear oil out of it, no metal in the oil or in the axle. Everything looks great in there, but the differential is pretty hard to see into, disassembly would be needed. I'm a strong believer in not fixing what's not broke. I think it's fine, so cleaned and painted the cover, installed a new gasket. I tried to remove the filler plug, and that old thing would not come out. Finally, I punched it out from the inside, and it tore.
Now comes the big headache, because I couldn't find a replacement ANYWHERE. GM tells me the part is discontinued, and gave me a dealership in town that was supposed to still have the plug. They said sorry. I hit all the parts houses, same thing. Finally, I hit a Dodge dealer I use, because I know they use a similar filler plug on their truck rear axles. The parts man was very helpful, matched me up with their part, which has less depth, but seems to be holding in there.Of course, if this plug blows out, I'll have a hell of a mess, and then some. It seems to be secure, but I just wondered what my fellow TTA afficionados have been doing about this maintenance issue.
As a side issue, I elected to use Royal Purple, which costs out the A#$, but comes highly recommended in some circles. What do you think? Thanks!
