I was also impressed by the available flush-mount bolts. I tend to beat the living daylights out of my axles/diffs/diff covers in the rocks and have had problems in the past with regular hex-head bolts and socket head cap screws (Allen bolts).

The idea of countersinking the heads of the mounting bolts seemed to me to be a great one for protecting the bolt heads so you can get them back out when you need to - no more undoing-the-lowest-cover-bolt-1/64th-at-a-time-with-a-bent-wrench-because-9/10ths-of-the-bolt-head-has-been-ground-away-on-the-rocks for me!

But the feature that sealed it for me was Joe's inclusion of both drain and fill plugs in the cover. Normally you have to completely remove the 14-Bolt cover in order to drain the gear oil. This is fine if you're doing major maintenance anyway, but can be a real PITA sometimes, especially if you're using a good quality RTV compound to seal the cover.

What this inevitable leads to, certainly in my lazy case, is less frequent changes of gear oil than might otherwise be prudent. I wheel in a huge variety of terrain - including plenty of mud and swampy water (I know, I know - I don't really like it myself but my son loves it!). In the past, if I couldn't be bothered to completely pull the cover, the gear oil didn't get changed - and the bearings probably suffered.

Now, with a convenient drain plug, after a wet or muddy run, I can do a quick drain, flush and re-fill and the guts of my axle will be much happier. Long-term maintenance will still require a cover-pull and complete cleaning and inspection - and the drain plug doesn't replace that; but in the meantime - it's nice to have the option to do a quick, convenient oil change.

Installation was a breeze - all the holes were perfectly round and perfectly matched the housing. Whether you're just replacing your cover or doing a complete overhaul like I was, you'll want to install the new cover with a good high-quality RTV compound.

My favourites are the factory GM stuff and Permatex's "The Right Stuff". Not only are they much stronger than the cheap auto-parts store stuff, but no curing is required before placing parts back in service - which means you can slap the cover on, fill it with 90wt right away, and hit the trails - no waiting!

Tech tidbit: by the way - in case you ever wondered - RTV stands for "room temperature vulcanizing". Vulcanizing is, of course, the process by which crude rubber is treated to make it more durable and suitable for different uses - a process normally conducted at very high temperatures. So RTV is a rubber-like compound that works at room temperature.

Cover bolts should be tightened to 35 ft/lbs.

The finished product both looks and feels very beefy - just the ticket for my 14-Bolt and the ideal protection for a locker and new gears.