It's taken a while but I've just undertaken a strip down clean of my car after running it with the diff covers.
As a baseline I ran the car from new, without the covers, in the following conditions:
10 packs - fake grass, 30% soaking wet
20 packs - dirt track, dust and fine gravel in parts
After which I cleaned the car and diffs and installed the covers. I was using the protective seals on the diffs and after the use above everything was still free from any large objects (and damage) but there was a lot of fine dust everywhere. There was a small build-up of fine dust on the gears outside of the belts - over time (without maintenance) this could cause damage or cause the belts to slip off.
Now, I run through about 30 more packs, mainly on the dirt track but also recently in mud and snow - all with the covers on. I've stripped it down and can report there is almost no dirt, dust or debris in or near the diff - I conclude these covers are great!
In my experience, it's not that debris was a big problem before but now it's not a problem or apparently even a risk. And that's good enough for me.
I want to run it some more (will now wait until spring) before I give a thumbs up to the durability of the covers but for now they have a thumbs up for usefulness.
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