Okay...this is my second week with my lr3 and I decided to change the diff fluid in both diffs and when I pulled the skid plate down I saw this





now what?

 

Are you talking about the diff? The sealant squeezing out? I wouldn't worry. It's sealant from the mating surfaces of the diff halves that squeezed out when bolted together. It's either been rebuilt or came that way from Dana. No worries mate.

 

no I was talking about how wet it is....it is covered in oil and the skid plate has a pretty oily/dirty spot on it.

 

I would clean the oil off, fill up with fresh oil check the drain plug for swarf then revisit in a week or so and see if the leak has returned. May also want to check the breather pipe and get the newer valve fitted in case a blockage was causing the weep.

 

you said you had a prepurchase inspection too, right? they should have looked at the diff's and seen this. If you do what stmcknig recommended, check later and it's still there, maybe go back to them and ask why they didn't see something this obvious.

 

sorry, thought that was just from the flash of the camera. yes, drain and refill. if you can, catch the old fluid and measure how much was in there to see if there was a bad leak and you lost a lot of fluid. I forget the capacity, but its in my oil change thread. Refill, clean everything up and recheck like the others said.

 

there is a humming noise coming from the driveline as well and I just noticed a clunking noise in the front end if you hit a sharp bump at low speeds...hope I didn't buy someone else's headache

 

the clunking noise is most likely control arm bushings that are worn. I think some other guys have had that issue here and described it similarly. search the LR3 forum for "lower control arms" or something similar.

hummining noise...not sure about what it could be. Need more info. Does it happen under acceleration, certain RPMs, higher as you go faster, while coasting, in neutral, etc.

 

Check the lower rear front control arm bushings, if you see any oil there then you need to replace the bushing/control arm. These bushings are fluid filled and once the fluid escapes you're done with that. You can opt to fit the RRS control arm which is alleged to have slightly tougher bushings - apparently the same as the LR3 armoured. It's about $30 difference on the arm I think.

Does the humming change when you change direction left/right/straight ahead ? It could be a wheel bearing on one side getting noisy depending on your mileage.

My 07 has 80K miles and I just replaced both lower control arms and both front wheel hubs/bearings....one wheel bearing failed without any prior noise and just scared the sh*t out me by a loud clonking. Thought I'd lost a driveshaft and when the guys got it on the ramp the degree of play in the wheel I mistook for loose lug nuts....

-- Stuart

 

it doesn't change with turning the wheel....you hear it holding a steady speed or slowly accelerating. It is the loudest at about 40mph....when you let off of the gas the noise goes away completely