2011 Rear Differential Oil Overfilled?

[JasonK94Z]

I have a 2011 Ram Quad cab 4x4 manufactured on 5-11. Rear axle has a hex plug for fill and also for draining.
I pulled the fill plug, and the damn thing was overfilled by a lot apparently.

So just how in the hell am I supposed fill it as much as they did from the factory? I know, fill to the bottom of the fill hole. Inquiring minds want to know, why did the factory over fill it? No rubber fill plug on the diff cover either.

Please fill me in. Should I be concerned? They had some kind of issue with tear ends around this time right?

 

[R.L.K.]

Fill it as much as you can .
The excess is most likely years of condensation build up .

Was it milky at all ?

 

[JasonK94Z]

Oil looked ok to me. I filled until it was running out and quickly slapped the fill plug in.

 

[OutLore]

Inquiring minds want to know, why did the factory over fill it? No rubber fill plug on the diff cover either.

Turn it upside-down and fill it through the drain hole.

 

[JasonK94Z]

Turn it upside-down and fill it through the drain hole.

LMAO! I thought the same thing.

I was just concerned because of that recall on rear ends at one point. Don't really know the details of the recall, but thought it had to do with the oil level. Then I wondered if they maybe overfilled them at one point as a band aid type fix. These days you never know what type of idiotic fixes a company might do to save a penny.

 

[Custom_Ram]

It takes just over 2 quarts

 

[LB3711]

2011 has 2 rear recalls. Something to do with the vent and for the pinion nut.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T337A using Tapatalk

 

[Raist11]

I'd be curious how much altering the factory rake could impact the angle, causing some fluid to spill out when removing the fill plug.

 

[csuder99]

I'd be curious how much altering the factory rake could impact the angle, causing some fluid to spill out when removing the fill plug.

That thought crossed my mind too, but dismissed it because of the rear suspension design. The pinion doesn't rotate upwards much if at all. Not like with short wheel base Jeeps and dual cardan shafts where the rear axle gets tilted a lot.

If it was still factory fill, the axles are assembled and filled off the vehicle so likely somebody was just a bit too generous.

 

[skirider]

Bringing this back as i had an outer pinion bearing fail at 50,000 on my 2011.
I only had the pinion nut recall on my truck but question if it was also effected by oil level but not on recall

I only have threaded plug for fill on front side

Im now questioning why bearing went. Was it lack of oil or did they mess up preload when they did pinion nut recall which i beilve the checked torque and slapped on retainer
I put 10000 on it since recall done

Thoughts

 

[Burla]

Where you on flat ground when you saw it was over filled? If you think about it, it is very hard to over fill the diff.

 

[skirider]

The question is was it overfilled due to fill plug potential issue in wrong spot.
And k36 recall

 

[MidwestJ]

Oil looked ok to me. I filled until it was running out and quickly slapped the fill plug in.

I think you’ll be just fine with this method.