How do you change differential cover on 1991 suzuki samurai?

Answer 1

None of my 4 Samurai's had differential covers, they had solid metal with no way to remove it on the sides away from the driveshafts, i.e., the rear of the back differential or front of the front differentials were not removable. I wonder why you want to, the only time I did was to change gearing or axle bearings. But here goes.

To disassemble the rear differential, as far as I remember since it's been about 10 years since I last did this:

Jack up the rear, put the axle on jackstands. Remove both rear wheels, and remove the brake drums. That should give you access to the 4 bolts through a metal flange that hold the internal axel to the axle housing. You may need to remove the brake springs and rear brake cylinders to get there. Unbolt/remove the flange bolts. The you should be able to slightly pull the internal axels 3 or 4 inches, so they disengage form the internal differential gearing. Trouble pulling out the axles? Use a wheel puller, or bolt a tire back on and hit on the inside of the wheel with a mallet, that's how I got the axles out. BTW, if you are going through all this and have a lot of miles on the Samurai, consider this as a good time to replace the rear axle bearings and seals. (My originals gave out at about 150,000 miles.) And oif course the brake lines will need to come off the wheels to give you slack you need.

Once the internal axels have been moved out, remove the rear driveshaft from the differential flange. Then you can remove all the bolts holding the differential 3rd member to the differential housing, and then you can just pull the 3rd member out of the differential housing. Oh yeah, at some point drain the differential fluid or you'll have a real mess. And the 3rd member is a lot of heavy metal parts. Unlike most things on the Samurai, it's HEAVY.

If you are thinking of changing diff gearing: Diff 3rd members from Geo Trackers with manual transmissions are lower gearing than the Samurai ratios. 3rd members from Geo Trackers with automatic transmissions have even lower gearing. But a Tracker rear 3rd member will not fit into a Samurai diff housing, cuz the tracker 3rd member has a ring gear on it for the speedometer, so is too large. The front 3rd members from a Tracker will bolt into either the front or rear of a Samurai, but are not as strong as they do not have the same internal cross member setup. And if buying 2 Tracker front 3rd members, be sure both donor cars were either both manual trans, or both automatics, so your gearing will match front and rear.

When I was extensively modifying my 86 Samurai, I changed transfer case gearing to have a 4:1 low range, and the high range was 80% of stock ratios. I used a tracker manual trans 3rd member in my front...and had a shop marry the rear Tracker diff housing with my Samurai axel ears...and install a rear EZ-locker at the same time. The end result, I could run 31 inch tires with no trouble at highway speeds (although speedometer was no longer accurate) and off road as well. My overall gear ratio when in low range 1st gear was around 78:1...that is, my engine revolved 78 times for one revolution of my wheels. I idled at 1mph, and redlined about 5 mph, when in low-low. Plus the locker, that car could go everywhere I pointed it that I dared try, including the obsticle courses at the 4wheel park in Hollister CA.