Through Shaft axle seal leak repair

[fulleraviation]

My front axle through shaft was leaking. The other day I pulled the yoke off and cleaned it up and added some grease. It bought me about 150 miles. I noticed after a trip to secure some BBQ for lunch that it was leaking again. I thought after the in tank fuel pump repair that I was done for the day, but NO! I could hear her calling me from the house to come back out and play.

Lucky for me I ordered some seals when I discovered the leak days prior from Memphis Equipment.

I got the old seal out with a little help from a chissel and hammer. Putting the new seal in required some thinking. I needed a seal driver to push it in evenly. An old glass jar did the trick. I hit it with a rubber mallet.

It's back together and requires a test drive RIGHT? Do you think the girlfriend will buy it?

Later,
Rut

 

[SCSG-G4]

What size glass jar? inquiring minds want to know (so we know which one not to throw away)

 

[broman78]

looks like a frito-lay salsa jar.

 

[fulleraviation]

That's a pretty good guess!!

The diameter is 3" on the jar. Not a perfect fit, but it works.

It is actually a Tostitos Mild Salsa jar. Personally I think that the Spicy would work better.

 

[broman78]

Tostitos is a brand by owned by Frito-Lay. My pops works for Frito-Lay know more that I want to about chips.

 

[Keith_J]

3 inch Sch 40 PVC works. Just put a cap on the end to have a place to hit. Use a dead blow mallet with rubber face. No fear of breaking glass.


This is the pinon seal. 3" IPS is 3.5" OD.

 

[fulleraviation]

Yes I agree it's a better choice, but sometimes you have to use what ya got lying arround.

 

[oldshep]

We dont smoke marijuana in muskogee, we dont take no trips on LSD. This just reminded me of some Merle Haggard.

 

[OPCOM]

I notice in the manual, they want you to pull more stuff, like the retainer and the shims.

Can you please explain about this? If I do not have to pull the retainer and disturb the shims and the rest, I would rather not. Or is there something I am missing?

Mine is on the front (driven) side of the rear axle.

 

[OPCOM]

We dont smoke marijuana in muskogee, we dont take no trips on LSD. This just reminded me of some Merle Haggard.

OOPs. I accidentally deleted the preceeding message. dang it. well it was a set up for this one. The story was about an old hippie that complained about my truck splattering his VW van with oil from my pinion leak. I figured the guy had been smoking something.

 

[OPCOM]

The same job on my truck turned out way different and not so simple. In case anyone finds the same thing I found, maybe it will help.

Ok. well the general rule is thread re-use. There is another good thread on this:
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/33717-pinion-seal-removal.html

And finally I removed a couple posts I made here on this thread, and want to re-do what I had posted now that the job is done.


I'd like to comment on the repair I just did. Mine was different because the axle hardware and seal was different and I could not find anything on this. This turned a simple job into a PITA.

#1, where the pics above show a typical looking pinion shaft seal, mine had a rope seal then a very thick and tough steel-encased seal. The rope job had pretty much fallen apart.

#2, The steel and rubber seal itself was recessed back inside the snout of the retainer and it was made so tough it was not about to come out with a chisel and I had to buy a puller. And a 1.5" socket for the pinion nut. The 3" thick type PVC pipe worked OK to tap it in, but it only made the new seal flush with the snout of the retainer. I would have preferred it go in further as there was plenty of room. I used the same seal type as shown in this thread. I have never seen the other kind, but my truck has them for whatever reason.

Let the pics show what they show.

 

[gringeltaube]

Interesting that they also used rope in place of the common felt ring. I've found all kind of seal styles in those old gasser diffs., including those made of leather. They all had felt on the outside, but never that sort of rope!

Edit: the more I think about this, the more convinced I get that that piece of rope got in there by accident.... wrapped around the shaft and somehow got trapped in the gap between deflector and seal...???

A more modern alternative: taking advantage of having retainers with "plenty of room" as you said, one can install two standard seals, the outer one with the lip facing outward, with the space between them filled with some soft synthetic grease of course.
At least this has worked very well for me for many years now.

G.