Remember how everybody was posting (including myself) about how on occasion there was a burning smell coming from the H3 and nobody could figure out what it was?

Now I know. It's the rear differential.

I had it flushed/cleaned and refilled last week. I wasn't aware there is an air hole on top of it. After having it changed, I noticed the smell came back again. It only came back on slippery conditions, when it was probably working the most. The smell is the scent of the lubrication coming out of the air hole.

I crawled under the H3 and stuck my nose near the differential. Sure enough, that's where the smell has been coming from.

So, after 2 years, mystery solved It's not the brakes as we all thought.

 

Dude, that is one funny visual..................

 

[sm=WTFsgign.gif] If the vehicle is moving, the differential is working. It gets warm as you drive and that's when it vents.

You may well have found your smell, but I think your theory is a bit flawed.

 

Well, perhaps it only smells noticeably in slippery conditions because it's slipping more and heating up more, or working harder? I don't know. I'm no expert at it, but the common factor with everybody that smelled it was always slippery road conditions, almost 100% of the time. Nobody would smell it unless it was slippery. I haven't smelled it for a long time until they changed the diff fluid.

I'll let you gearheads figure it out. All I know is that smell is the smell. I remember it quite well

You can probably explain it better then I can, no doubt.

 

Yes, a pic of the sniffing under the rear would have indeed been priceless!!!!



Diff lube stinks, but it reall doesn't smell burnt IMHO, just nasty stinky??? [:'(]

 

ALL differentials, Transfer Cases, Transmissions, Etc...Have vents. These vent hot gasses built up by the process of doing what they do to the outside atmosphere. I've really never looked but the H3's vents SHOULD be be on the end of a hose up high somehwere so they won't suck up H2O.
The other thing is I know what 90 Weight gear lube smells like and it sure doesn't smell like burning wire, which mine has done in the past. I don't know what you were smelling or what it was coming from the diff vent but something doesn't smell right with your theory.

 

Well to those of us that don't know the smells, we might have mistaken it for a burning smell when it wasn't anything burning. I know that's the smell I was smelling though. I don't know if there is mass-hysteria on the topic

All I know is I haven't smelled the smell in a long time and remember it. Now that it's all lubed up, that smell is back.

 

I have to admit that Mike, with his nose stuck to a hole at the back of his Hummer, would make for a funny picture. Glad the mystery is solved, at least in HGs situation.

 

I didn't mean to sound smug but once you get a snoot full of 90 weight you'll never forget the smell. I guess it's something us gearheads take for granted, sometimes we forget that not everyone has skinned up knuckles and smashed finger nails. My appologiesfor assuming that everyone knew the putrid smell of gear lube.

 

i'm sure HG knows the smell of burnt lube . . . every time his hand passes in front of his nose . . . . [sm=icon_rofl.gif] [sm=insomnia.gif] [sm=laughat.gif] [sm=jawdrop.gif]