I guess if you have dipstick it means you have an auto tranny, mine's manual. Does anyone know if manual transmission has a breather hose and where does it come out to?

 

it doesnt show a breather for the manual in my service manual, however another member that I wheel with got water inside his tranny, they figured out it cam in thru the shifter area, there is a metal ring that holds the rubber boot onto the top of trans, well that metal ring has a foam "seal" under it but that doesnt seal it from water if you get stuck that deep, he took his off and put silicone around it to seal it better

 

this is something i have to do too. now that i have the snorkel on there can't forget to make the breathers longer.

 

If it's got fluid, it's gotta breath! Yes, manuals have breathers.

If you have a snorkel, run all your breathers to the snorkel. Even the rear diff. That's why you got a snorkel!

 

Does any body thinks about oil + heat (breather spill next to the exhaust ) = fire

 

shouldn't be a large volume of fluid, ever. Certainly no more than valve cover leak or something similar. Besides, fluid will slowly drip/run down the tube based on what I've seen so far.

 

Extending the breathers is not enough to keep water out of the diffs. You also need to reseal the covers. I had water up to the top of my tires, with extended breathers and when I checked the oil after my trip, there was water in the diffs.

 

That's interesting. Why do you suppose water got in if oil wasn't getting out?

 

I researched about it and the only explanation I found was that the oil heats up gradually letting air out though the breathers, but when you go into water it cools down way too fast and the breathers won't supply air fast enough causing air/water to get in though the seals.

Another member had the same problem and it ended when he replaced the diff covers. I don't know if the solution was the new corers or the new seals.

 

I don't buy that heating/cooling too fast. Air would come in through that breather hose before the vacuum effect actually sucks H2O through a sealed cover! Now, I do believe that the factory seal on the cover might be too thin. When I replaced my front cover, there was almost NO sealant in there. It was SUCH a thin layer of silicone, I was amazed! So maybe water got in simply because the seal wasn't good enough to withstand total submerging in water of the pumpkin. That's more pressure than either 1) the vacuum caused by heating/cooling of gear oil, or 2) the gravity only pressure of gear oil resting on the bottom of the diff cover (it's only partially filled, don't forget).

Along those lines: I put my Warn diff guard on the rear without removing and factory cover. So that means I only removed and reinstalled the bottom bolts. It now leaks a little. When I did the same thing on my last Jeep, I had no problems with leaking and I think the only difference is that this time it was the factory seal, and last time it was after I had serviced the rear a few times.

That reminds me, I gotta go home and change my rear diff fluid and re-seal it!

That's my $.02.