How to Inspect Differential Gears for Wear

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we're going to talk about the proper way to change your oil in your rear differential. In this step, we're going to talk about inspection of the components inside our rear differential. What I'm going to do is roll right underneath the vehicle. If you have an automatic, you're going to want to put it in neutral. If you have a standard transmission, as well, put your stick shift into neutral. What we have here. Let me get my screwdriver, so I can point for you. We'll start from the outside and work our way in. This is the ring gear. This is your anti-lock brake sensor. These are the caps for your axle bearing. This is your carrier. Let me rotate it for your. These are your spider gears. Here, here and here. And all the way in the back is your pinion. What I'm going to do is go over the inspection procedure with you. Your just looking for broken, damaged or excessively worn teeth. Your also looking for excessive play. Those components hop and down or in and out it's going to indicate a bearing failure. I'm going to grab a hold of the front of the drive shaft and inspect the teeth on the bottom of the pinion as I roll it one complete revolution. As you can see, the teeth are all nice and smooth. There are no pits in them, no excessive gouging or any damage like that. That indicates that my pinions are in good shape. I'm going to perform the same inspection procedure on the ring gear just by rotating the drive shaft. The pinion will drive the ring gear around. You?re looking for any broken or chipped teeth. Damaged or pitting or pitted drive surfaces. Once you make a complete revolution, you've inspected all of it. You?re going to roll it back up and get a look at your spider gears. You can actuate your spider gears by turning the wheel. As you see, I'm going to hold my ring gear and spin the wheel around. You can see how the spider gears are transferring what they call differential action. You're going to inspect these surfaces inside here for excessive wear, broken teeth or pitting."