jeepin.jason

One thing I’ve found myself being guilty of lately is getting over-confident in my mechanical abilities and just skimming through the instructions when I do an install on one of our Jeeps. On something like a set of swaybar quick disconnects, it’s not that big of a deal, but when you’re installing something like an ARB air locker, and you’ve never installed an ARB before, and you don’t have anyone helping who’s installed an ARB before, you should really follow every step on every page.

It sounds like it should be common sense, and well, it should be, but apparently I glossed over the part of the ARB install instructions that talks about insuring your axle housing has adequate oil drainage. Consequently, after only a few miles the rear axle in our TJ would start spewing copious amounts of differential fluid out the breather hose on the axle tube, which of course would create a huge mess as the fluid sprayed all over the underside of the Jeep.

My first thought fear, was that I’d messed up something during the gear install and the fluid was overheating and foaming, causing it to purge out the breather hose. The differential housing never felt all that hot to the touch though… So, I called up a friend of ours who’s a very skilled install tech for 4WheelParts (he’s now in sales actually) here in Dallas and picked his brain about my fluid problems. He said it sounded like a drainage issue that they’d run into in the past on ARB installs. Basically what was happening he said, was fluid would built up in the driver’s side axle tube, but because the redesigned air seal housing was on that side the fluid couldn’t drain back into the main housing fast enough and would eventually get forced out the breather tube.

Looking back through the install instructions, sure enough, it talks specifically about how to check if the housing is clearanced for adequate drainage and what to do if it’s not. The fix—drilling a drainage hole from the main housing into the axle tube—is pretty simple, and took me all of about 10 minutes (I drilled two holes, just for good measure). Now I just need to go buy some more diff fluid, fill ‘er up, take ‘er for a spin to make sure it’s not spewing fluid anymore, and remember to always thoroughly read through all the directions, regardless of whether I think I know how it’s supposed to go together or not.