ARB diff cover installed

[Bigguyry2000]

It's an easy install, I did remove the passenger side panhard bar fastener to easily access the cover for the swap.

Two notes:

First, that I wanted to make everyone aware of, was that the clamps used to secure the brake hard line to the housing will not work with the ARB cover. In the other covers, you can reuse the factory fasteners for those 2. The ARB is machined with a tighter hole there and will not allow you to reuse the factory hardware. I worked around it with some padded cable clamps in the upper holes, as the brake line naturally was closer to where the clamps needed in relation to the housing in those locations. Really could have used one, but I didn't want one to fail and then have the brake line beat itself on the sharper corners of the casting on the housing.

The only other thing to note is that the 4 fasteners at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions are too long, or were for my axle housing. You can trim/grind them down, get shorter ones, or put some washers under the screw head. The axle housing is an M8x1.25 fastener and a 25 mm lenght worked in mine well For those 4. Make sure to get a class 12.9. The factory is 10.9 but that's only good to 20lbs/ft. The ARB cover comes with 12.9s which are good to 23lbs/ft. ARB specs 25lbs/ft in their paperwork, but I went to 23 since class 12.9 M-8 stuff is only good to about there. Your mileage may vary.

Used a factory amount of fluid for the fill and that amount was appropriate.

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[RagnarKon]

Quick question... since I'm naive about this product.

Is there a cooling/performance benefit with these covers (like the Banks Power covers on many HD trucks), or some sort of maintenance benefit? So we just going for style points?

 

[jwysopal]

Quick question... since I'm naive about this product.

Is there a cooling/performance benefit with these covers (like the Banks Power covers on many HD trucks), or some sort of maintenance benefit? So we just going for style points?

Depends on the design, some for cooling (if finned), some for style, some have easier (or harder) maintenance. This particular cover from ARB is mainly for the upgraded strength, which is great if it's bashed onto a rock while offroading, as well as magnetic plug to check for metal shaving for wear or misalignment.

Hope that helps

 

[ju015dd]

Nice looking product!

 

[Bigguyry2000]

Quick question... since I'm naive about this product.

Is there a cooling/performance benefit with these covers (like the Banks Power covers on many HD trucks), or some sort of maintenance benefit? So we just going for style points?

For me it's maintenance for the future. My last trip offroading had a bunch of door deep water crossings. I like to change differential fluids after a trip like that with a bunch of water crossings. I also plan on doing trans a t-case soon as well. To me, it's much easier/cheaper to put in a couple quarts of oil, than it is to replace bearings that might get messed up due to the water. The ARB cover has a drain plug that allows me to leave the cover on for any future maintenance. As long as the gasket doesn't leak, I like to keep it in place. For this change, I kept the gasket that came from factory, but I do have a replacement in case it leaks.

 

[Grumpy]

It's an easy install, I did remove the passenger side panhard bar fastener to easily access the cover for the swap.

Two notes:

First, that I wanted to make everyone aware of, was that the clamps used to secure the brake hard line to the housing will not work with the ARB cover. In the other covers, you can reuse the factory fasteners for those 2. The ARB is machined with a tighter hole there and will not allow you to reuse the factory hardware. I worked around it with some padded cable clamps in the upper holes, as the brake line naturally was closer to where the clamps needed in relation to the housing in those locations. Really could have used one, but I didn't want one to fail and then have the brake line beat itself on the sharper corners of the casting on the housing.

The only other thing to note is that the 4 fasteners at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions are too long, or were for my axle housing. You can trim/grind them down, get shorter ones, or put some washers under the screw head. The axle housing is an M8x1.25 fastener and a 25 mm lenght worked in mine well For those 4. Make sure to get a class 12.9. The factory is 10.9 but that's only good to 20lbs/ft. The ARB cover comes with 12.9s which are good to 23lbs/ft. ARB specs 25lbs/ft in their paperwork, but I went to 23 since class 12.9 M-8 stuff is only good to about there. Your mileage may vary.

Used a factory amount of fluid for the fill and that amount was appropriate.

I did the swap also, but I didn't have to disconnect the pan hard bar,maybe due to having a 5" lift helped. I fabricated the 90° brackets myself so not to disturb the brake line bends and painted them black. I bought the black ARB cover.

Quick question... since I'm naive about this product.

Is there a cooling/performance benefit with these covers (like the Banks Power covers on many HD trucks), or some sort of maintenance benefit? So we just going for style points?

This particular cover has added strength, but the best benefit is yes, magnetic plug, but the dipstick and lower drain plug. I usually do this upgrade on all my trucks so that I can inspect the fluid the fluid level without having to remove cover.

 

[Bigguyry2000]

Yea my bar crosses right in front of the cover. It was only an issue tightening the bolts at the 9 o'clock position for me. But otherwise I could have worked around it.

Did you get a longer panhard bar or a different mount? That's a pretty tall lift to have it keep the axle centered

 

[Grumpy]

Did you get a longer panhard bar or a different mount? That's a pretty tall lift to have it keep the axle centered

The Rough Country 5" lift kit is complete with all the brackets to put everything back to oem geometry.

 

[Bigguyry2000]

The Rough Country 5" lift kit is complete with all the brackets to put everything back to oem geometry.

That's good. Man a 5 inch lift would have your axle pulled driver quite a bit

 

[Grumpy]

Didn't understand what you meant?

 

[Bigguyry2000]

Didn't understand what you meant?

If you don't have brackets to level the bar it can't keep the axle housing centered under the vehicle

 

[CarbonSteel]

@Bigguyry2000 - a few questions for you:

- did you have to put a lot of tension to force the line into the clamp?
- what size clamps are those?
- does the line clear the dipstick?

Thanks!

 

[Bigguyry2000]

@Bigguyry2000 - a few questions for you:

- did you have to put a lot of tension to force the line into the clamp?
- what size clamps are those?
- does the line clear the dipstick?

Thanks!

Not much force at all. To get the line into the clamps I used you just spread the clamp. They are a 1/4 inch padded wire clamp. I have a big variety pack from Amazon. Yea the dipstick will clear the line. Once you unthread it the disptick pulls right out.

Getting the line out of the factory clamps is easy also. Just use a little flat based screw driver

 

[JunitoNo1]

Planning on installing the same cover on my 22 Badlands some time this week. What oil did you end up going with?

 

[msujay2012]

Is this a beauty cover (it is cool looking)? I'm more concerned with hitting the bottom of the rear diff, not the back side. It doesn't look like it provides any protection along the bottom where the seal is, unless I'm not seeing it correctly.

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