pulling my rear diff cover??
 

hey the person who had my car before me opened the rear diff for some reason and didnt bother to replace the cover gaket. instead they used this black sillicone sealant on it, and its just aggrivating me, its so sloppy and unprofessional looking, so i got an offical replacement gasket from subaru the other day and im planning to pull the cover off and seal it properly. theres just one thing, im just starting out with all the mechanic stuff so im willing to get my hands dirty but im not quite experienced yet. :( i heard that you cant pull off the cover unless you pull the hole rear axle out, which sounds ridiclious but i want to make sure its not true before i start unbolting and pieces start falling off lol.

Re: pulling my rear diff cover??
 

I hope you kept your receipt. The rear cover mounting studs go thru the rear suspension sub-frame. To get to the bolts to separate the cover from the rest of the diff you would have to move the diff forward so the studs will clear the sub-frame. Of course keeping you from doing that is the driveshaft, the rear exhaust system and heat sheilds. The diff weighs about 40-50 pounds, not counting the weight of the axles unless you are going to separate them also.
I would go get some gasket solvent and a sharp knife and trim and clean the current gasket making it all pretty. If it is leaking that might be a different story, but the leak would have to be greater that the pain of gasket replacement.
Maybe someone has an easier fix. I just did a 4.44 transmission/rear diff swap and these seem to be the issues.
Good luck, Keith

Re: pulling my rear diff cover??
 

I agree with Tex, if you have a lift and you've done it before, you can get the rear diff out and back in in under 30 minutes. Doing it for the first time on your back is IMO not worth it to remove some gooped ultrablack.

If you do want to go ahead and go through with it, I posted the procedure for removal within the past few weeks. Go back through my recent posts and you should find it.

Re: pulling my rear diff cover??
 

no i just want the diff cover off, not the whole differential, and i only have jackstands and a jack... :( no lift sorry. so if i just unbolted the 4 bolts (i think 4) on the cover itself, it wouldnt come off?? :( sorry if im a little slow lol

Re: pulling my rear diff cover??
 

The problem is, to get the rear cover off of the diff, you need to remove the diff from the car. The diff is mounted in a way that the cover is against the crossmember. Also there aren't 4 bolts, there are 8. You can't see the other 4 untill the diff is removed.

I've removed many with the car on jackstands, I wouldn't remove one for the reason you want to. ;)

Re: pulling my rear diff cover??
 

If you look at the rear of the diff, at the top, you'll see two BIG bolts that go through the subframe. They're inside some rubber bushings. Those bolts go all the way through the diff. Through the cover and everything. To remove the cover you have to take the nuts off those big bolts, then remove the entire diff from the car (or at least get it out from where it is a little bit), then you can slide the cover backwards off those bolts.

A lot of work. Just take a razor and shave the excess silicon off where it squeezed out. Same results, much less time.

Edit: Ack, Dave beat me to it. *shakes fist*

Re: pulling my rear diff cover??
 

ok thanks for the help :) i think im just gonna razor off the extra lol i just figured the stock gasket would be somehow e better, but oh well lol