Is this normal? Gear Oil

Quote from JKgray10

Is it normal to be low gear oil in the rear awhile after having the axles pulled and new gears installed?

Is it normal: that my front gear oil is real dirty looking (black lik[size=1em]e) after have the axles pulled, tubes cleaned out, and new gears installed.[/size]

[size=1em]I was doing my pretrip inspection for this weekends run and found the 2 above questions? the rear was to low to be able to tell is it was dirty so i just topped it off and the front was plenty full and thats where i noticed the color. I had the gears done at the end of March.[/size]

[size=1em]I dont feel like it but should I change the fluid before heading up to RC?[/size]

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New gears will have some break in so fine particulate in the oil is not unexpected. Was it measured low or did it look low? Just saying, folks used to seriously overfill the Rubi D44's for example because they didn't measure what they were adding. Led to blown axle seals if the breather was plugged. If you are just running normal gear oil, no harm or cost in just changing it out anyways...

have you changed the oil after breaking the gears in? that is usually 500 miles....if you haven't then I would really do so

Quote from JKgray10

It looked low to me. I usually fill just below the fill hole and it was considerably lower. I'm just running normal gear oil, I ran down the street to advanced auto and bought some. Going to change it now to be on the safe side.

If I filled my TJ Rubi axles like that I would blow gear oil all over for about 200 miles until it found a "proper" level. Lol But gear oil is cheap so if in doubt, change it. Unless of course you run the synthetic liquid gold like I do. [size=1em]And unless you see a leak, I wouldn't be too concerned about the level. If it was truly "low" then you would see it going somewhere (axle seals, diff cover leak, drain plug, pinion leak, etc.). [/size]

What dif covers are you using? Some of the aftermarket ones like my Riddler covers have higher fill plugs. When I fill mine to the fill hole, it blows out the breather until it finds it's happy place. EDIT: Just saw Brian posted that method while I was typing.

Quote from turtle

have you changed the oil after breaking the gears in? that is usually 500 miles....if you haven't then I would really do so

X2 - and it may look a little more metallic than usual.

JK's make it easy to change the oil because they have `a drain plug (though I prefer to pull the cover and look at the gear set). Lube Locker gaskets make pulling the cover very easy BTW.

Any chance that the tube seals are leaking fluid into the tubes? And x2 on changing the fluid for break-in. It's probably dirty from that. Fwiw, I love the ARB covers, they have a dipstick for measuring the level and it has a magnet on it.