Quote:
Originally Posted by chris.817
Update: I am doing the full replacement, again. I did buy the new vent. No different than than the original as far as amount of pressure it take to vent so that was not my problem.
After pulling out the axle, the inner spacer seems a bit chewed up like the machinist did not put them far enough onto the axle. Which also seems to rule out the idea of putting it on backwards per Timmy's instructions.
So as of right now, I do not have a smoking gun as to why this has failed again...
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Well, on this round you're replacing the axle and that's good because maybe your axle shaft is slightly bent from the accident. There's also a chance the bearing case is bent too. The bearing case has ears that the serrated bolts are drawn into. On a hard enough impact, those ears could be bent so take a good look at it when you get it apart. What's interesting is
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calnhob
(aka Wei) has had a similar issue with his driver side. I helped him with an axle seal job and was miffed why the axle wouldn't pull out easily. We suspected the bolts were bent but didn't have any available so we made it work having to give the axle some encouragement with a mallet going back in. He found later on his axle seal was leaking again so he gets himself a used axle. When we are taking off his brake backing plate so we can swap it over to the donor axle, we take a good look at the bearing case and realize one of the ears was visibly bent out of whack. We got it all back together for a second time with a different axle and bearing case from the donor assembly, confirming a good mating inner axle seal and inner retainer and think he's now good to go. But, he says it's now leaking once again and I told him the only other thing that could be causing this is a bad breather unless there's something in play we're not recognizing. With a new bearing, new seal, confirming a proper mating of the retainer and seal, confirming you have a working breather, and ruling out the possibility of a bent axle or bent bearing case, there's nothing else that could be causing the seal to be failing. I don't know if Wei figured it out but he's the only other guy I've heard of that has had a similar problem like yours.
The inner retainer being chewed up meant it indeed wasn't pressed on far enough to the axle and the bevel side was grinding into the inside of the axle housing. This is why the flip method is great because you can keep the retainer in pretty much the original position the retainer was from the factory. The seal redesign by Toyota has the seal lip now sitting 2mm more inboard. When you flip the retainer, you now don't first have to push past the 2mm bevel to get up onto the polished shoulder where you want to seal to ride.
As long as you are doing some type of grease or sharpie test to confirm you have a good mating of the inner axle seal and inner retainer and your breather is working, you should be good to go. For the grease or sharpie test, go ahead and snug up the axle to the axle housing with the 4 nuts, spin the axle a few times and then pull it back out. Ideally, you want the seal lip riding close to the center of 10mm polished shoulder of the retainer.