Posted by Matt Wilson on Friday, July 19, 2002 at 5:51PM :
In Reply to: cosmoline on gears posted by Dave on Thursday, July 18, 2002 at 11:31PM :
If your differential is fully assembled and has all this cosmoline in it, you might think about taking it to a car wash and spraying the heck out of the inside of the differential with the high-pressure soap spray setting and then rinsing real well. Do this until you are pretty sure that you have all the cosmoline removed, then quickly spray some oil into all the crevices, espcially into the bearings and gear teeth.
I removed a bunch of cosmoline from the inside of a NOS transmission gear shift cover. It had all of the shift forks, rails, etc, in place and it would have been much more difficult to take it apart and clean everything one by one. This cleaning procedure really did the trick, although you should take protective eye gear, as the water will sure reflect back out of the some of those crevices and hit you in the face.
As for corrosion of the bearings and gears in your diff, as long as you quickly spray everything with lube before you even leave the car wash, the small amount of rust that will show up will be pretty insignificant, in my opinion.
Matt