replaced rear dif. fluid now it leaks
 

so on the camaro i decided to replace the rear differential fluid today. did everything to get it changed...unbolted the cover, drained fluid, scraped the remaining parts of the old gasket off..replaced a new gasket, bolted back on, put fluid in. drove it around, and now it leaks, looks like from the bottom right part of the case. i double checked to make sure every bolt was tightened and it was.

idk where i could have went wrong besides the fact that maybe it was a dumb mistake and i put the bolt in and the hole in the gasket wasnt lined up correctly, or maybe its just a crap gasket in general. ive been reading up on it and it says if its overfilled it may leak. im not sure, anybody else ever encounter this issue? thanks

Jon

over tighten the bolts? sometimes you have peen the bolt holes in the cover to make the mating surface flat again. trans pans too.

LOL. P33n.

But he's right, you may have distorted the cover with too much torque. Did you use high-tack on the gasket or did you install it dry?

LOL. Peen the holes.

But he's right, you may have distorted the cover with too much torque. Did you use high-tack on the gasket or did you install it dry?

How much prep work did you do before you put the new gasket on ?

whats peen the bolt holes? im not sure if i overtightened honestly i just tightened them up until they were snug and didnt try to incredible hulk them in there or anything. i got a gasket from autozone and installed the gasket dry.

didnt use sealant i went with a gasket. but before that i scraped the old gasket material off the best i could.

Yeahn I caught that lol but before I put any type of gasket or sealant on I do almost a half hour of prep work and sanding . When your done it should look like new bare metal you could eat off it

ah yeah i didnt do that. i just really scraped the old gasket off with a scraper with a razor at the end. that may be it then maybe i missed a little of the old gasket or something.

Yeah I would get it good and clean. Personally I would just use some Rear diff RTV for gasket and run a decent bead around the whole thing and go around all the bolt holes as well. I would do it on the rear itself and then put the cover on aligning two bolts on either side at the same time. Trickery, I know.

yeah whoopsies that could be it. ill check it out again tomorrow.

i googled the issue also and someone with a mustang had a similar issue and someone told him that its because he overfilled it and its leaking from the cover and to wait it out because it may stop the next day. in my head i was like :scratch: a leak is a leak what would it matter if it was overfilled or not so i wrote that off.

If it was coming out of the vent, sure. Its leaking from the bottom of the cover, its the gasket.

Going off memory, two of the upper bolts are longer to hold those brake line brackets. Maybe you put them in the lower holes and bottomed them out before they mated tight to the cover?....Just a thought.

yeah make sure you clean the mating surface off good and clean. anything left can cause problems. as for using a dry gasket, ive found using 2 or three very small drops of super glue to help hold it in place while lining up the bolts work very well :D

I'll check te bolts tomorrow. I'll keep that in mind when I do it tomorrow the super glue trick. what do you guys use to sand the surface with

The best thing to clean the gasket surfaces is 3M Scotch-Brite Roloc discs and an angled die grinder.

fixed the problem today..it was most likely due to this

when i took the bolts off the rear i didnt even stop to check the length of the bolts when i reinserted them to but the cover back on. it was leaking bad from the right side because both of the longer bolts were on that side and were probably not mated tight to the cover.

i redid everything though because the old gasket was already doused with gear oil. i sanded the rear and the cover down real good and it looked much better than yesterday, and replaced it with a new gasket and filled the case up with brand new oil. made sure the longer bolts were in the right spot. took it for a spin and ive been keeping track of the car parked and not one drop so far.

thanks for all the help to all who replied i really appreciate it.

Jon