Well I had my Jk in for a complete fluid change today. Engine oil, Both axles, manual trans, and transfer case. Replaced everything with Royal Purple. All went well except when we pulled the drain plug on my rear axle. There was alot of metal shavings attached to the magnetic plug. We opened the cover and everything looks great EXCEPT the spider are on there way out. So need less to say...quick phone call to Northridge and Brian hooked me up with replacement gears and bearings.
Mind you....my JK was making no unusual noises. So please people make sure you do your regular maintainance, we would not of found this till it was too late if we hadn't been. As it stands it is likely a relatively easy fix. I only have 56K on my JK with about 33K on the gears. I have 4.88 gears, manual trans and have been running Royal Purple in the rears since the gear change.

Anyone else have this happen?

 

Umm, its normal to have some shavings on the plug, thats why its magnetic, to catch normal wear shavings. Now if they're huge culy cues thats all together different. Got a pic of the shavings and the spiders?
Also, Royal purple imo is wayyy overpriced cat piss gear oil. It's freakin thin as water.

 

To have a blob of creamy crap stuck to the plug is ok. Did you have chunks or big shavings in there?

 

I'll get some pics up. I didn't get a pic of the plug when we removed it. the glob of shavings was about an 1 1/2 inches long on the plug and almost an inch around. There were no large chunks but definately shavings. My buddy who did my gears at his shop and has been building rears for over 20 years says definately more pieces than he would like to see. He referred to it as delaminating over the gears. He says he sees it alot in mason dumps, not sure why. The only thing we could think of is just alot of hard accelerating either in corners or when making turns which engages the spider gears the most.
Don't know but either way I'll replace them and see how it goes. It is a relatively easy fix at this point. I'm just glad that I try to do all maintainance regularly. I'd rather find out this way than being stuck on the road somewhere.

 

I wonder if cryo treating the gears would help. I've read a few articles and your story wants to make me give it a try when I do my gears.

 

I just changed my gear oil in the front ... Had a 1/2 thick gooey goop on the magnet .. no metal bits or shavings though ... You saw actual bits of metal??

 

Yeah, My front was as you described yours. The rear was a mass of metal shavings with a gray cream. No chunks or chips, they were thin metal slices. Thin enough that if they were to hit the ring and pinion I'm sure they would fold and pass right through.

Just waiting on my new spider gears. I'll take pics when we open it back up.

 

Just did maintenance on my front and rear today as well. Front went well, just noticed that the spider gears were starting to round a little bit. I was willing to let those go....then I made my way around back.



Opened the back and was somewhat relieved that it was just the spiders and nothing else....but just fyi. It's definitely key to check your stuff. I was just doing routine mainenance and didn't hear anything funny. The only the I could say that I thought felt different was that my backlash was getting worse....

By the way, does it look like I have a limited slip in the rear?