Ram Differential Cover Question

One day I was lookie-louing thru a local swap meet in some little town we were near and I spied a Mag-Hytec cover for sale. It was for my '07 RAM 3500. Brand new/complete and I snagged it for $125----SCORE!

Higher fluid capacity, cooling fins, drain plug w/magnet!!! a real dip stick and a port for a temp probe.

Thanks all. I appreciate the input.

the e-man

Poor black paint was the reason for chev's a few years ago. I never had it happen on 5 of our GM trucks.

chevman

Go for the bling:C I had one on my 2001. Nice cover, fits well, just about doubles the oil capacity which is a good thing. Nice feature is it has a dipstick and a drain plug, which are both magnetic to catch the wear metals.

Sam

BBQ paint might work too. It's flat black and withstands heat well.

Or you could take it to your local powder coating shop and have an epoxy coating on it. :B

Take a wire brush to it, and then paint it with black paint. Rustoleum makes a high heat paint that works wonders.

I've put Mag-Hytec covers on previous Rams and really liked them. They have a little larger fluid capacity over stock.

My new Ram has the Max Tow Package so it came from the factory with a machined aluminum diff cover. Very nice. I won't be changing it.

I had the same issue with my 2007 diesel and I installed an aftermarket cover on mine and refilled with AMSOIL 75w110 synthetic gear oil instead of the OEM 75w90 synthetic. The higher viscosity at operating temp gave me some peace of mind.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

Does the paint 'burn off' on it?? If so, it's getting pretty hot IMO..

On my old F150 with a 9.75" rear end, the first time I changed the gear fluid, it found the previous owner had covered it with spray on undercoating! To me, that would not allow the cover to dissapate the heat very well..

So, I removed all that to bare metal and used just your basic cheap grey primer and then a couple of coats of basic cheap black paint (rattle cans BTW) and expected to see the paint 'burn off', and then I'd at least know how hot the diff was getting.. Well, in the 12 years I owned it, it never burned off, and I never had to repaint it.. I changed the fluid a couple of times and just cleaned it off and it looked great!

Or, pop for a nice finned aluminum cover... ;)

Good luck!

Mitch