Front diff oil

[cossack4]

Hi!

In a quest to see if the noise coming from my front diff was excessive i ended up in the front diff and cleaning out some of the grease from around the casing which looked a bit dirty. I left most (but not all) of the grease on the actual diff itself, and (stupidly) added a drop of wd-40 (it was all i had to hand, don't ask).

So, in the absence of any diff oil (need to order some) i'm wondering if i can continue to drive the car, or should i wait until i've completely re-oiled the front diff?

As for the noise, i'm guessing it being fully greased lessens the noise? I'm not concerned about the noise itself, only if the noise might mean a problem waiting to happen.

Cheers...

[TQi]

You realize that you have to open up the differential itself right? it sounds like you just opened the bulkhead up and cleaned some grease off the ring and pinion gear. The actual differential gears are inside the metal diff, not the plastic bulkhead.

You're fine to run unless you did actually open the differential and drain the oil out, in which case, it's not good for the gears. But you can run the ring and pinion gear pretty much dry


edit: it's probably making that noise in the first place because most of the oil has drained itself out of the differential, and the gears are grinding

[cossack4]

Cheers TQi, you are right i was confused with the front diff and was only talking about the ring and pinion gears. It is less noisy now but will re-oil the actual diff (front and rear) as it needs doing. I take it the diff oil is different from shock oil? yes, i'm new!!!

Thanks for the help...

[TQi]

No prob man , yeah shock oil is way thinner.

example: stock shock oil is 30 weight, lol I don't know what stock diff oil is, let's just say it's 30K weight. 30 (shock oil) to 30,000 (diff oil).

carefull when you open the differential, lol first time I did it, it almost fell apart in my hand.

[cossack4]

ha ha! that does not fill me with confidence. anyhow it's working for now so i'll put some diff oil on the wish list ... which is growing daily!!...

[bruggar]

Do the stock diffs come with oil in them?

[cossack4]

yeah think so 30,000w in the front, 50,000w in the rear

[Spillproof]

yeah think so 30,000w in the front, 50,000w in the rear

I believe the heavier oil is in the front. The viscosity of shock oil, and diff oil are on different scales. My 70w shock oil is pretty close to 30,000k diff oil.

Not to mention each vendor has their own scale for shock oil weight. Associated 30w is not the same as Losi 30w. If you want a headache check this out...
http://www.rcrcr.com/index.php?optio...eral&Itemid=46

[TQi]

Oh yeah, I've heard of people using the lower weight diff oils in shocks like GPM because the holes are too big

[cossack4]

"from the factory, the front diff is filled with SAE 30,000W visc. silicone oil. The rear diff is filled with grease, but can also be tuned with silicone diff oil."

[TQi]

Yeah I read up about that too and realized that I need some oil in the rear.

it was screeching a little bit the other day and I couldn't figure out why, I think that's why.