Gear oil coming from front diff vent tube.

[scotty71]

Sometime last Friday I noticed fluid on the ground near front driver's wheel. I eventually tracked it down to the front diff vent tube. There are Ford TSBs on this issue, but I haven't been able to find what causes it. It got really cold here Friday night down to about 4°F. I believe it has done this before in Feb 2021 when it got down to -4°F

What would cause this? Moisture in the diff? Top of vent tub iced over? There is currently on splash shield on that side.

Thanks.

 

[franklin2]

Here is the TSB. Looks like a design flaw in the location of the vent. They have some sort of baffle system to fix it.

https://testing-public.carmd.com/Tsb/Download/35048/tsb05-06-20

 

[scotty71]

Thanks for that info. I bought this Ranger new in 2001 and this is only the 2nd time I can remember that fluid has came out of the vent tube and both times the night temp was very cold.

 

[franklin2]

The oil being really thick must be thrown up and out of the vent more than normal. Instead of going through all that work to modify the vent, I wonder if changing to a synthetic gear oil would make the problem go away. The synthetic is supposed to flow better in cold weather. It's not cheap though.