I was confirming the casting numbers on my calipers and noticed grease on the backside of the driver's rear tire (see pic).

Bad axle bearing? I had the passenger side replaced about a year ago, so it wouldn't shock me. Assuming that's what it is, I'm guessing this is something I need to address before this upcoming brake job? Is this a good DIY candidate assuming I take it to NAPA (or somewhere) to have the bearing pressed out/in?

Was planning on replacing the rotors on all four corners (going with Centric) along with Toyota pads in the next few weeks (first brake job I've attempted). Am also anticipating on having to replace at least the front calipers with Toyota remans, as the current ones look awful but the rears look pretty gnarly as well.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

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If all you're doing is removing the axle and taking it somewhere to have someone else do the press work then it's really easy. The hardest part will be getting the drum brake back together.

Yeah from what I've seen online, it's $50ish to have NAPA do it with supplied parts. Is it for sure the axle bearing, though?

Thanks

Nothing is for certain. It could be the axle seal or even brake fluid.

If you have the bearing replaced, I'd definitely do the seal at the same time.

Replace the differential breather too.

Good call, guessing mine could have failed and may be causing the seal issue on the axle seals. Will extend the breather into the engine bay.

You're going to extend the rear diff breather into the engine bay????

That's going a bit far just to extend it, most extend it into the gas cap area or inside the rear interior panel on the driver's side!

Hah, yeah, I'm OCD like that. I may wind up going that route but don't like the idea of terminating it inside the cabin and hate the look of it tucked next to the gas cap. We'll see when I dig into it.

If you do extend it all the way to the front, I wouldn’t use hose for that long of a run. I’d bend 1/4” hard fuel line, or similar for the main run, then use rubber hose at each end for the rest.

I tried just replacing the seal on mine, but it had formed a tiny ridge on the seal surface which allowed it to leak again.
My shop did press the bearing and seal part out but put a new bearing as well for a total of $175ish. I think I got the high-quality bearing when they offered it.
It is a fun job, not too hard, just take your time.

So, are you saying that when you redid it, you did the bearing as well the second time? Did you polish the ridge off too?

First time I did it, I just put a new $13 seal and JB weld on the metal surface. It worked for about a month then didn't.
Second time, I brought the axle to the shop. They replaced both the bearing and seal surface since they had it all apart.

Thanks for explaining further. That makes sense now.

Replaced and relocated the diff breather today, the old one was still functional but was literally finger-tight in the diff itself, which was odd/concerning.

Wound up routing it up the fuel filler line and terminated it below the rubber filler. Resulted in a really clean install (no breather poking thru next to the fuel cap) yet is high enough to keep out of trouble.