so i have had my jeep for about a year and a half now and i dont get to do much to it since 1. i am usually broke 2. it is mostly a fishin rig right now and 3. not a whole lotta time to tinker.
when i do get under her skirt i usually find something that makes me shake my head but this last weekend was ridiculous. i am planning a trip to idaho in a couple weeks to pick up a trailer so i decided a full fluid change was warranted:thumbsup: (have only done oil and trans so far). i started at the rear diff. and thats where my day took a turn for the worse.
i noticed that my diff cover was caked in about 3 in. of grease and thought oh well just 20 years of gunk. i attacked it with some brake cleaner to expose the bolts and thats when i saw the bead of silicone around the outer edge. thought to myself "dumb a$$es" as i scraped it off.
found that 5 out of 10 of the bolts were barely finger tight (my fault:nono: for not checking sooner) opened it up and low and behold!!! someone used about 3/4 of a tube of rtv and it had bled into the cover about 1 1/2" again i thought "dumb a$$es".
the kicker came when i looked at the bolts and bolt holes... they were rtv'd in and the holes were full of dried silicone!!! :brickwall so after cleaning bolts and picking all that rtv outta the bolt holes (and alot of cussin by the way) i gave up for the day, it was all i could handle and besides it was dinner time. at least it's done correctly now and full of nice clean oil.
so my final evaluation is this... buy a cheap jeep that was not excatly properly taken care of but when you pull out the tools and dig in, try to resist the homicidal thoughts when you're cussing the p/o.
sorry for the long rant but needed to get it off my chest.
when i do get under her skirt i usually find something that makes me shake my head but this last weekend was ridiculous. i am planning a trip to idaho in a couple weeks to pick up a trailer so i decided a full fluid change was warranted:thumbsup: (have only done oil and trans so far). i started at the rear diff. and thats where my day took a turn for the worse.
i noticed that my diff cover was caked in about 3 in. of grease and thought oh well just 20 years of gunk. i attacked it with some brake cleaner to expose the bolts and thats when i saw the bead of silicone around the outer edge. thought to myself "dumb a$$es" as i scraped it off.
found that 5 out of 10 of the bolts were barely finger tight (my fault:nono: for not checking sooner) opened it up and low and behold!!! someone used about 3/4 of a tube of rtv and it had bled into the cover about 1 1/2" again i thought "dumb a$$es".
the kicker came when i looked at the bolts and bolt holes... they were rtv'd in and the holes were full of dried silicone!!! :brickwall so after cleaning bolts and picking all that rtv outta the bolt holes (and alot of cussin by the way) i gave up for the day, it was all i could handle and besides it was dinner time. at least it's done correctly now and full of nice clean oil.
so my final evaluation is this... buy a cheap jeep that was not excatly properly taken care of but when you pull out the tools and dig in, try to resist the homicidal thoughts when you're cussing the p/o.
sorry for the long rant but needed to get it off my chest.