Help Me With My Dilemma

I never heard anything like his explanation of an oil leak before. Have you looked underneath to check and see if the oil pan plug is snugged up or see if you have a oil pan gasket leak? I have seen people not tighten the oil filter enough and it leak from there. If not it is further up the block. Sounds like a significant enough leak that it should be easy to run down. Buy a case of oil and throw it in your back seat.

3Hummers said:

I never heard anything like his explanation of an oil leak before. Have you looked underneath to check and see if the oil pan plug is snugged up or see if you have a oil pan gasket leak? I have seen people not tighten the oil filter enough and it leak from there. If not it is further up the block. Sounds like a significant enough leak that it should be easy to run down. Buy a case of oil and throw it in your back seat.

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He have a foot of snow on the ground, I'm not laying down in it for nothing or nobody. It's on it's way back to the shop at 5:30.

Yeah, it sounds nutty, but it also sound completely plausible. And I could be getting the parts wrong...

In short, there's water condensation somewhere (i'll find out this evening) He said when they worked on it the other day, they dumped about 1/4 cup out....So, when it gets so cold, the water condensation completely turns to ice. And if you know ice, ice expands...Thereby blocking things up...and literally pushes oil outside near the PCV valve.

I'm taking it back in this evening, because they'll leave it in their heated garage (Which I don't have) overnight...By morning, the ice will have turned back to condensation and they'll try to remove it from the system.

It's been so cold here for so long, the door of my house are starting to not close properly. .

And it looks like we have at least another 2 weeks of it.

Sorry...no matter how nice the mechanic is, I'm calling BS on that explanation.

I completely owe your mechanic an apology and admit I was wrong. I had heard of actual valves freezing shut, but never on a system like the H3. Sure enough, here is the TSB:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2015/SB-10059031-8882.pdf

So, I dropped it back off. Here's what happens.

There's condensation in the lines....That condensation freezes, and blocks the hoses. Pressure builds up and it has no place to go, and the oil comes right out the main seal. Now, to give a little proof that he knows what he's talking about (and I don't). When I dropped it off today, I pulled in, let it idle, jumped out and looked for the puddle of oil that it had been producing in the morning. It wasn't there.

As I walked in, before I could say anything, he said. "It's not leaking anymore is it?"

"No". I said.

"It's 20 degrees. It warmed up enough for it to thaw".

So, he's leaving it in his shop all night. (50 degrees) and he'll try and get some of the condensation out.

FWIW- I Googled it....it's definitely a thing. Here's a snippet of someone else's explanation..

[FONT=&amp]From what I've read it's the combination of extreme cold which makes the seals weak and IF the PCV valve sticks some oil may seep past the seals(due to crankcase pressures building up).


I almost forgot to mention...I was talking with one of my customers today, and I was telling him about the oil leak...He said..."I'm literally headed to the dealership because my brand new High Country is leaking oil everywhere".[/FONT]

The H3 does not have a PCV valve which is at least part of why I don't buy that explanation. I may have been a little harsh in my last comment, but I still don't think that's the cause. Assuming the PCV line to the intake manifold did somehow freeze, crankcase pressure is going to vent out the passenger side port, through the fresh air intake tube and into the intake right before the throttle body. I'm no mechanic either, so maybe wrong, but I'm still not 100% convinced. At any rate, I hope you get it resolved.

Yeah, that goes with what he's saying....and again, I'm paraphrasing... He said it's a bit complicated because it doesn't have a normal PCV..It's attached to the intake (I believe that's what he said).


Next morning...

Mechanic, just called. Said he let it sit in the garage all night... Fired it up this morning..No leaks, but they went ahead and cleaned everything out, he thinks he got everything cleaned well enough, said it was blocked up pretty good.

When they initially saw that it was leaking, they filled it with oil. That was 2 days ago. This morning, it was already 2 quarts low.

I don't want to muddy up the entire forum with my dumb questions, so maybe I can get enough traffic here that some of you guys that know what you're talking about can help.

So, after everything I've went through with the H3 in the past 2 weeks, I've decided to keep it indefinitely. But I've fallen in love with the thought of having locking differentials.

This is an H3 base. First, can I put something like the ARB Air lockers or Eaton Electric lockers on it? I don't do a lot of 4 wheeling, but I hunt out west a lot, and I get it into some fairly hairy situations. The thought of having locking diffs is great.

So, if you're familiar with them...Which would you go with? The ARB or the Eaton?

Looks like they'd both be about $1000'ish....What should I expect for cost of professional installation in your opinion?

Gadsden said:

I don't want to muddy up the entire forum with my dumb questions, so maybe I can get enough traffic here that some of you guys that know what you're talking about can help.

So, after everything I've went through with the H3 in the past 2 weeks, I've decided to keep it indefinitely. But I've fallen in love with the thought of having locking differentials.

This is an H3 base. First, can I put something like the ARB Air lockers or Eaton Electric lockers on it? I don't do a lot of 4 wheeling, but I hunt out west a lot, and I get it into some fairly hairy situations. The thought of having locking diffs is great.

So, if you're familiar with them...Which would you go with? The ARB or the Eaton?

Looks like they'd both be about $1000'ish....What should I expect for cost of professional installation in your opinion?

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Yes you can put either ARB or Eaton's in. The Eaton's are what came from the factory. In my opinion they are fine if you're doing simple stuff or at least are OK with the fact that they unlock when you change directions. They use an electromagnet to cause a set of balls (in the rear, I think it's pins in the front) to ride up a set of ramps to push the locking pins into place. When you change direction with the locker activated the balls go back down the ramp which causes the locker to disengage and then it re-engages when they go back up the ramps in the other direction. This is fine if you're well aware of this limitation and don't get into situations where you are stuck in both directions. If you do get into a situation where you're stuck in either direction then you have to be very careful to not spin the wheels too fast or it will accelerate the wear of the locking pins at the least. At the worst it'll grenade the locking mechanism and possibly the diff. It takes about a couple feet or so I think for the locker to engage in one direction, and 3-4 feet when changing directions. So they're fine if you're just moving in one direction or can slowly spin a wheel to re-engage it when stuck and needing to change direction.

I replaced my Eaton's with ARB's after my rear diff blew up the spider gears on Metal Masher in Moab a couple years ago. The rear locker had been abused (pins were starting to round off) and I just didn't like that it didn't stay 100% engaged the whole time it was on. I think the issue of it unlocking and re-locking when changing directions might have been a good portion of the cause for the failure. I was trying to get up a shelf and kept having to backup up and try again. I might not have been going back far enough and the locker was slam engaging (though I wasn't going nuts, I had 3Hummers and I think Reloader spotting me up it).

The ARB's are nice because once you turn them on they stay locked no matter what until you disengage them. They are spendy though, and you have to add in the cost of the air system. But in my opinion they are the most surefire and dependable selectable locker solution available. I think total including labor (which was mostly due to the regear I did at the same time) it cost me a few thousand dollars between the lockers and the labor. Most of that was the lockers since I brought the guy my axles. They can probably do the rear with it in the truck and on a lift, but the front axle has to come out and if you're paying them to do that it will add a bit of cost since you have to take apart the whole front driveline to get the diff housing out.

You can look at my build thread to see what all I did for my setup. With either option though it is recommended to have the cast iron front diff housing if you are going to be putting in a locker, you stand a greater risk of cracking open the aluminum housing that is stock on the majority of H3 models. Only the 2009+ Adventure's and the Alpha's came with the cast iron front diff.

Truthfully though if you are not doing serious rock crawling or getting into really tough situations you can probably do just fine with only a rear locker. There isn't a lot of situations where you need all four wheels completely locked together versus the 2 rears. If money is an issue as well then just do the rear locker and get yourself a pair or two of Maxtrax. The Maxtrax will cost far less than the second locker and help you get out of plenty of situations just as readily. You'll probably want the Maxtrax regardless. I used my pair last November and they were super helpful. Totally worth the $300, and I had to use my winch as well but without the Maxtrax the winch would have eventually gotten the job done but it would have taken me a heck of a lot longer. I didn't have my lockers hooked up just yet though at the time plus me tires were 6 years old and getting worn down pretty well which is how I got stuck in the first place.

Wow, thanks for the great info JPaul. I appreciate it. Yeah, at this point I'm mostly concerned with a rear locker. What are your thoughts on finding a rear diff out of something like an adventure or H3T and installing it?

Gadsden said:

Wow, thanks for the great info JPaul. I appreciate it. Yeah, at this point I'm mostly concerned with a rear locker. What are your thoughts on finding a rear diff out of something like an adventure or H3T and installing it?

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Not JPaul but would be a rare find and still have to open it up and see whats inside might not everything be good. If you want Eaton for the rear check out before you buy https://www.drivetrainspecialists.com/ in Michigan if Mitten means that. Reasonable prices install everything but the electrical switch. One thing about Eaton dont know if its a high mph rated system. Hummer and Jeep from factory one engage in low range. In my Ford from the factory will engage in 2 or 4 high but in high will electronically drop out at 24mph no matter what the switch says and come back on when under 24 mph. Maybe safety issue rear may kick out in some situations.

Traction boards and shovel are a must if out there by yourself get good ones though. Aco or Ace shovel is good enough. Traction boards some cheap ones are 1 use only rip right up. Actiontrax or Maxtrax are the top ones but cost pretty penny til you need them

If you can find one in good condition then a straight axle swap is obviously easiest. However as 720H mentioned you have no idea what condition it is in until you open it up. Fortunately though for the rear all you need to do is take the cover off and you can see the locking pins inside the diff pretty easily. If they still look like they are square cut rods with sharp/clean edges then it was probably never really used. If the edges of the pins are starting to wear down you can probably still get some life out of it before it needs a rebuild. If the pins are highly rounded then it's unlikely to engage and will need a rebuild.

Fortunately there is a kit from Eaton that includes the parts needed to rebuild the locking mechanism and it doesn't cost a whole lot. You do have to remove the diff to rebuild the locking mechanism but it should then just go right back in with the same shims. As long as you kept track of what side the shims were on when you remove the diff you could do the rebuild yourself. You might be able to get the diff back in too but a shop could easily pop it back in for you for not very much since it shouldn't need any adjustments made to the preload and backlash.

You can see in my build thread what the locking pins look like when they've been used a bit. There are other pics floating around of what they look like when they are completely worn too.