Teraflex CRD50R And Dana 44 HD Differential Cover (87-18 Jeep Wrangler YJ, TJ & JK)

Video Review & Installation

Today we're gonna talk through the installation of this diff cover, which is a very simple one-out-of-three wrench installation. Installing this is pretty much just going through the process of changing the fluid in your differential which, of course, is a one-out-of-three wrench install, and it won't take you more than an hour to complete, but we'll talk more about that installation in just a second. Also, gonna talk through the construction, and a few of the features of this differential cover.There are a few different heavy-duty differential covers on the market, and most of them are going to be right around the same price as this one. While this does have the feature of having two different drain plugs in it so you can mount this as a high-pinion or a low-pinion differential cover, it doesn't have some of the other features of the more fancy feature pack and expensive differential covers. This isn't going to have any sort of magnetic drain plug, it's not going to have any sort of dipstick in it, but this is still going to be much stronger than your factory differential cover. So, if you're worried about peeling back a differential cover when you're out on the rocks, installing this will definitely give you a little bit more peace of mind, and it's going to be less expensive than those premium covers.This is made of a ductile iron that is 3/8" thick so, of course, this is very, very strong. It comes with a gloss black powder coat and, of course, has the Teraflex name right there in red. As we said, this does have two different drain plugs built in to it. One is for a high-pinion use, and the other is for the low-pinion, so you can use this on either a front or a rear Dana 44 axle. This is also going to come with all of the bolts that attach the differential cover to the axle and the two drain plugs themselves. All you need to supply is the RTV and the differential fluid. This is, of course, a very simple one-out-of-three wrench installation that will take you less than an hour to complete. The first step is, of course, removing that factory differential cover, and before you do that you will want to make sure that you will have a drain pan underneath of it to catch all of the fluid as it comes out. Then, you can go ahead and zip off all of the bolts that are holding that factory diff cover, and use some sort of prying mechanism, even a flat-head screwdriver, to release the cover from the differential itself. Of course, you'll drain all the fluid at this point.The next step is cleaning the surface of the differential itself. You wanna make sure that that's nice and clean, make sure that it's not marred but it's also not dirty; a nice clean surface. You can even use a brake cleaner to make sure that doesn't have any residual fluid on it. After that, you will put a bead of RTV around the differential. I like to let it set up for just a couple of minutes. Then, go ahead and install the differential cover with the included hardware, torquing every thing down in a star pattern. Then, let the RTV set up the rest of the way before filling the differential and plugging it up. The whole process is gonna be very simple, as I said. This is pretty much the same steps as just changing your differential fluid, but you put a different cover on it when you're finished. This diff cover comes in at right around $100 and, in my opinion, that's a fair price for what you're getting. This is a solid piece of iron. It's definitely going to give you some peace of mind over that much more flimsy piece of steel that comes on your differential from the factory. This is going to ensure that when you're out on the rocks, you're beating up the pumpkin, you're not going to have an issue with your differential cover failing.So, if you're looking for a differential cover for your Dana 44 axle that's much stronger than factory, I think this is going to be a really nice option. Of course, you can spend more money on a diff cover that has more bells and whistles like Magnetic Dream plugs and dipsticks, but, if you're looking for something a little bit simpler and a little bit less expensive, I think this is gonna be a good choice. So, that's my review of the Teraflex Dana 44 Heavy-Duty Differential Cover, fitting all 1987 and up Wranglers, that you can find right here at extremeterrain.com.