Wednesday, July 1, 2020

New Rear Differential PLM Cover 11035 installed by Dealer at NO charge - just BARELY fit!!

Just how close of a fit was it? I honestly did not think it was going to fit - when I crawled under the car last night with the new differential part. Here is what it looked like in the box:

And so the local big box DIY store opened at 6. So I bought a "metal cutting" bit for the drill - after I tried using steel brushes - to grind down the cooling fins. Turns out this is the "mod" that people do to get the PLM cover to fit - in some cases. I didn't have much luck since I didn't have a "die grinder" - which is what people use. For example consider this comment:
For me, getting the new PML bolts back in (and torqued-down correctly) is gonna' be problematic, because of the panhard/track bar.

So you can see the grinding I did and to the left - the darkness is the Trackbar. More photos will clarify just HOW CLOSE this fit is!!

Still difficult to see but a bit more clear. So the Dealer has the "service advisor" and then the technician mechanic. In a very rare move - I actually was able to talk to the mechanic when he parked the car after he finished working on it!
How did it go?
He confirmed the new cover was installed and it went fine. He said he did NOT have to use the "level check" plug - the reason I had the cover sent back and "machine tapped." I said - but I thought the fill plug was rounded out - he said he could use it still on the differential but the fill plug was a "loose fit."

So I had been unable to get that info before - that's why I had this new cover installed. Still the thing looks very cool and since the old cover had still been leaking - they had no charge for this labor!!

An even closer photo - I'm crawled under the car - so it's difficult to tell how the photo will turn out. I will paint the cover since aluminum can oxidize although technically it's not rust. But then I can paint that track bar underside also - after treating it for rust.
  Your best shot at dissolving it would be phosphoric acid, but that will dissolve the underlying aluminum
So paint the cover first. Then treat the bottom of the track bar with phosphoric acid and paint the track bar.

So here you start to get the idea of just how close - we are talking maybe a quarter of an inch?

And NOW we get a better view as I back up the camera a bit. So definitely a very close fit indeed. Now I did post that video link of this part being installed on the similar car - a year difference and not quite the same model - but a "mirror image" model. So I was not totally sure it would fit.

Slightly more farther back. These photos are all upside down - because that's how I was facing! I suppose I should right side up the photos. But I will do that now from the camera.

still upside down and still very very close.

From this distance it looks like it is touching! But it's not. In fact that is why some people grind down the cooling fins because with "sway bars" they say that with a "load" then the bar would rub up against the differential cover. I don't have much of a load hardly and a track bar is not the same as a sway bar. For example this comment:
Depending on the spare tire size - they indicate you may have to grind down some of the pml fins.

Finally we can see the cover from right side up and facing the front of the cover.

And there you have it folks!! The amazing PLM rear differential cover -
https://yourcovers.com/diffcover_11035.php

That's the part number. 

No comments:

Post a Comment