Changed 11.6 rear end oil

[Trem22]

I think it was "only" built wrong for the first few months of production. I was able to add the specified amount of fluid via the fill hole.

What year is your truck, and do you know the build month ?

 

[4wheelgreg]

Has any one followed up on this ? I’m wondering if this has anything to do with a lot of Tremor rear differential failures with the Tremor Pinion being a few degrees higher for the drive angles piñon not getting enough lubrication so the engineers redesigned the fill hole to bring the gear oil level higher on the tremor for more lubrication .
Having built my share of big lifted trucks with high pinion angles have had to re drill to move the level higher , Tremor pinion angle dose not appear to be to drastic , how even my thinking since its a new axle design engineering spec the capacity to low for this axle .
Just thinking out Loud , wonder how this will affect the aftermarket cover business , Gail Banks is usually pretty good with that stuff , I think the Mag Hytech covers look great but are poor design compared to Banks
Just my 2 cents

 

[russlj]

Going through a differential bearing replacement right now @ 7K miles (7.3, Nov '23 build, 4.30), so I'm interested in this. IMHO, failures could be from one of several things. A few that come to my mind (no particular order) - bad bearing batch, bad factory setups, factory contamination, incorrectly filled gear oil level due to the discrepancies in the Ford spec documentation, and yes I suppose excessive angle relative to oil level. What else? I'm no diff bearing expert, but I've set up a few lifted Jeep axles. That community does some really high pinion angles because of the short shafts and tall lifts, and pinion bearing failure due to the higher angle doesn't seem be a common problem that I've heard much of. A short wheelbase Jeep D44/D35 is apple to oranges to a long wheel base Ford Sterling 11.6 I know and YMMV.

 

[j20brett]

Seeing how others (including myself) are having their rear diffs fully rebuilt, if i was any of yall, i wouldnt touch the rear diff until a service tech did first. As soon as you change the oil, you lost all your proof besides the bearings themselves being bad that there is a problem. If you have that much material in the fluid, in the bottom of the diff and on the magnet, you have problems larger than what an oil change will fix.

 

[oceanrace]

This is a really good point. By doing a fluid change on the differential the evidence of mechanical failure is erased. The same could be said for fluids everywhere in the drive train though.

Fortunately my new truck (2024 F350 Lariat Tremor) has had zero problems so far. Yet. And hopefully will not. Just did my first oil change at 5k miles, no fluid changes in rest of the drive train. I was considering a rear differential oil change in 15k miles. Recommended, yes or no?

 

[MVI]

Yes

 

[DblZero7]

This is on my radar to do next week.

 

[The Evil Twin]

All gear manufacturers say change it after 500 miles. So few do. Then people are surprised to see glitter when they do change it. Spiral bevel gears slide across the mating surface for their entire life. That is where the glitter comes from till they mate in. Do it at 500 and keep a sample. Do it again at 50000 and visually compare the two. You’ll see

 

[DblZero7]

This is on my radar to do next week.

I installed my PPE Diff Covers today at 15,000 miles. Front diff oil was rather clean. Rear diff cover oil was very black but didn’t notice much sparkle. No metal on magnets.
No issues really with install. Front gasket is reusable and was in great condition. Rear gasket was replaced.

 

[The Evil Twin]

I installed my PPE Diff Covers today at 15,000 miles. Front diff oil was rather clean. Rear diff cover oil was very black but didn’t notice much sparkle. No metal on magnets.
No issues really with install. Front gasket is reusable and was in great condition. Rear gasket was replaced.

Still waiting for the black PPE cover
Back order, no ETA.

 

[Hillclimber]

Still waiting for the black PPE cover
Back order, no ETA.

I was told sometime in may, i need one too!

 

[The Evil Twin]

I was told sometime in may, i need one too!

Well, that’s better than what I was told a month ago

 

[The Evil Twin]

Damn. Now all flavors of the PPE diff cover for the 11.6 are unavailable! I was going to buy the Raw and have it powder coated.

 

[KR3]

They’re probably reworking it for proper fill level.