78,000 miles (125,000 Km) and my rear differential bearing hasn't failed

The new (better?) gear oil and magnetized drain bolt seem to be working.


I will post here the mileage that it fails at (if it ever fails)

how to magnetize bolt?

No need to literally magnetize the bolt.
Just put a magnet directly on the bolt and, in time, the bolt will get a remanent magnetism and behave like an extension of that magnet.

I am at 90,000 miles (145,000 km) and the pinion bearing is silent. (99% of the time)


For reference (approximate mileage)

40,000 miles I first hear the noise of the bearing the dealer indicates that they can't duplicate the problem

50,000 miles warranty ends, I change the fluid in the differential (the old fluid is full of small air bubbles, it should have been changed sooner)

55,000 miles I place a strong magnet on the fill bolt of the differential (some magnetic particles are attracted to the bolt)

80,000 miles switch to a drain plug with the magnet built in (clean periodically to remove magnetic particles)

90,000 miles the drain plug magnet is nearly free of magnetic particles


Based on the above information I have two recommendations

- Change the fluid in the differential every 40,000 miles or sooner

- Get a strong magnet or a magnetic drain plug


Here is the drain plug that I bought

Volvo Magnetic Differential Drain Plug - Dimple 30713275

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo-dif...g-30713275


One final comment

I want to thank Alex for all of the help he has provided

Know this is an old post guys but how much oil does the front transfer box take?

Can find details anywhere.

Cheers

John,

The capacity of the angle gear should be about 0.75 liters

When I changed mine I was only able to extract 0.5 Liters

So I just replaced the 0.5 liters that I removed.


Note: per the procedure you are suppose to fill and remove 0.1 liters

My housing was clean and dry so I assumed that my fluid level was correct.

The fluid I used can be found at a Ford dealer motorcraft xy-75w90-PTU

This is a BOT oil, special additives to reduce foaming, the bevel gear tends to add air to the oil.

If you watch the video you will see that the extracted oil is black on the bottom with a thin layer of brown.

The brown layer is small air bubbles in the oil. (for the video it was likely due to to pump used for removal)






My angle gear oil came out without any bubbles.

By comparison my rear differential oil was filled with air bubble the first time that I changed it.



Good luck

Paul

Thats haldex oil which you are using?

Front transfercase needs different, There is no draining only fill plug. Hard so suck anything from there.
oil was something BOT

For reference here is what I used when I changed my fluids

For the Haldex

Volvo AOC Haldex Gear Oil (1 Liter) - Genuine Volvo 31325136



For the front angle gear

xy-75w90-PTU (PTU bevel gear needs xy-75w90-ptu motorcraft fluid 30 oz)


PTU = power transfer unit



My part numbers are correct

Good luck

Paul

Just a follow up

I am at 107,000 miles and my front and rear differential are doing fine.

I decided to drill a hole in the front differential (transfer box) so that the fluid would drain out easily.

It was just too difficult to get the tubing in to remove the old fluid.

To create the drain I removed a bolt on the transfer box and I drilled out the back of the hole until I got to the oil.

the drill I used was 1/8" (about 3 mm)

See the picture for more information.


Happy Motoring

Paul

Holy Fu.... So you removed one of transfers box bolt and then drilled from bolt hole?

You put the bolt back and its sealed? or did you create new threads?

Interesting Mod Not for the fainthearted.

Oil from Millers UK

Gearbox TRX SYNTH 75W/80 2ltrs.

Transferbox TRX SYNTH 75W/90 0.75ltrs

Rear Differential TRX SYNTH 75W/90 0.75ltrs

Millers Note

The front differential is from the Transaxle manual gearbox. Please note do not use the 75w/90 for the gearbox you must use the 75w/80 as you will not be able to select the gears

Millers note:

Take no notice of the antifoaming BOT oil as all gear oils have anti foam additive otherwise the oils would be all over the place. They try to frighten people into taking the car into the main dealers and pay through the nose for something which they think is special and it is not. FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

What a great idea . Will consider that for mine. I agree that fiddling around with the tubing is a pain & you can't get all the old oil out.
Is 1/8" a limit or the biggest you dared to go?
Any problem getting the bolt to seal? I guess you put some sealer under the bolt head, or a fibre washer?

Thanks to all for the replies

Yorky Bob, I was using the BOT oil but for my next change I'm switching to synthetic, the oil I removed was very dark but it wasn't filled with bubbles (in fact it had none that I could find, not even tiny bubbles) Thanks for the helpful suggestions on what oil to use

littletriple, see the sketch below, to answer your question I didn't want to disturb the threads so that's why I did 1/8"

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

thanks Paul. Understand re damage to the threads, have you found 1/8" gives a reasonable flow for draining? Being slow doesn't really matter though & all the oil will drain out. I like the "wasted" bolt too

Martin

It will not drain all the oil, as it seem it's not on the lowest point of the box...
But nevertheless, much easier to service.