Very good advice Kevin!
That's exactly how I forced the dealership to rebuild my Sure Grip
differential. They told me they would drive around to the back lot and
do a burnout. If it left 2 marks, they would claim the SG was OK. I told
the "service manager" the REAL procedure from the FSM (copied below). He
scratched his head in wonderment, then he went and picked up his own
FSM. He returned and read back the exact same info that I had just told
him. He then scratched his head again and went looking for the tool to
attach the torque wrench to the axle. After testing, the results showed
the SG wasn't completely useless yet, but it was at the very bottom of
the scale. It was all but shredded, so they agreed to rebuild it under
warranty at no charge.
It really pays off to have this kind of info to back you up. For some
reason most of the techs and service managers don't know about it, or
maybe they're just too lazy to do the testing correctly.
Alan S.
1998 Dakota R/T DA RC
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 21:21:37 -0800
From: Kevin Sellstrom <ksellstr@softcom.net>
Subject: Re: DML: broken LSD?
Per page 3-60 in the 1999 Mopar service manual, here's the "Trak-Lok
Test:"
After cautions about raising both rear wheels when turning with engine,
yada, yada, yada, it states that you can test the diff w/o removing from
vehicle, here goes...
1. place blocks under both front wheels.
2. raise ONE rear wheel off ground.
3. engine off, trans in neutral, parking brake off, no dragging of
brakes.
4. remove wheel and attach tool #6790 which is just an attachment
allowing a torque wrench to attach to the hub via three lug nuts (to
avoid
breaking one if used on just one and to center torque wrench in center
of
hub for accuracy).
5. use torque wrench to rotate wheel.
6. If rotating torque is less than 22Nm/30 ft.lbs. or more than
271Nm/200 ft. lbs. on either wheel, the unit should be serviced.
Hope this helps.
Kevin
At 08:37 PM 2/23/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>I have noticed that my limited slip differential isn't very limited
>anymore. I know if I show up at the dealer and ask them to look at it,
>they will just bill me for an hour and tell me it's ok. How can I
>quantify my loss of performance to a Dealer on this thing? Is there a
>service life on these? One note:at my 60k checkup, they put the wrong
>juice in it the first time, and it took me three trips back over the
>course of a week to get them to drain it and put in the right combination
>of fluid and additive. Could this have shortened my service life? Any
>advice diagnostic or otherwise will be greatly appreciated.
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