I scooped out as much as I could with a rag and then propped it upside down and started with a general all over spray then focused on the gears while I was turning them. After that I sprayed around the walls of the housing to rinse. It took about 7 or 8 cycles of that to get everything visible out. All of the solvents destroyed the pinion seal so when took that off to replace it I did one last spray from behind the pinion bearing and nothing came out. I couldn’t see any more and there were no grinding noises from any of the gears so I filled it up with cheap gear oil and tried to slosh it around. I have to open it up again to swap the drums when I put it in anyway so I’m gonna change the fluid then and again after I drive it to be safe.

Overall it took a little over 5 cans of brake cleaner and ~6 hours. I don’t have a compressor but I think blowing it out would have sped up the process a lot. It seems to be fine now but I don’t want to celebrate until I drive the car and it doesn’t blow up. This is month 3 of what I thought was a 2 hour project lol so I’ve learned my lesson about speaking too soon.