I used that to paint my bumper. Love the way it hides the flaws.I use @wibornz recommended Rustoleum truck bed paint. Dries in an hour or less and a slight texture helps with any painting flaws. Still wet in this pic
Hard to beat AFE's diff cover...beautifully machined, fill plug, drain plug, sight window, doubles capacity to 2.2 quarts, has 2 magnets, one on the drain plug and one on the fill plug with a rod that extends down, aluminum construction with some cooling fins. Put the best gear oil in it: Redline.
My dif skids look just like that and my original covers are fine. Since I already have the skids for dif protection, I put the dif cover $$ into shock tower skids.I think it depends on what you are going to subject the Jeep to. They both serve a different purpose. The thicker diff cover to protect and add rigidity, and at least with the NV, a diff skid that protects the pinion, I’m not hard core and probably just use poor judgement, but I wouldn’t give up either. These have been resprayed multiple times.
I have “all the skids” available for the JLU that I’m aware of and like to say I have “skids on my skids”. I did have to modify the front next venture diff skid to add the front lower control arm skids. I wheel with a guy who rarely hits his skids while I seem to get good use out of all of them. Of couse he has 40 years of experience wheeling Jeeps and I have 3.
The primary purpose of the HD dif cover is to be thick enough to prevent the bottom lip from bending when hitting a rock. If the bottom lip is protected by a skid, the thicker lip is unnecessary overkill. If someone is able to impact the face of their dif and wants extra protection that way, hats off to them because it would take a lot of talent to hit the face of a front dif. without hitting all of your steering suspension first and the only way to hit the rear dif. face would be if you were driving through the rocks backwards. I suppose depending on the design, better heat dissipation might be one case where a HD dif cover and a skid would be used at the same time.
I guess I would have to see someone with an example of a stock cover failing when a skid is used before I would invest in both.
This is what I'm running, but in raw aluminum.Hard to beat AFE's diff cover...beautifully machined, fill plug, drain plug, sight window, doubles capacity to 2.2 quarts, has 2 magnets, one on the drain plug and one on the fill plug with a rod that extends down, aluminum construction with some cooling fins. Put the best gear oil in it: Redline.
Yeah, same one...the bare aluminum looks good...
I have no expertise and am just repeating what @chevymitchell and @grimmjeeper have said. Under load, the housing will deflect causing the gears to not mesh completely. This deflection, for people that wheel hard, is something to keep in mind as the stock cover isn't designed to do anything except seal the housing cavity. Most aftermarket covers are made thick for this reason more than the ability to take the hits.
The great thing about the forum is I learn something new every day. I can see the tubes on the axle housing deflecting so I have added trusses for that but I would like to know more about cast differential housing deflection if anyone has time to elaborate.
With magnets and pouring some new fluid to flow through before replacing the drain plug, this is mostly mitigated. That said, I can agree with the concerns of visual inspection but your frequency to do that may vary.
