Another Rear Axle Leak Thread

brian4t

brian4t

New member
Fellow Forum members,

I was informed my 2001 TR4 with 158K has a 'soaked' rear passenger drum, gear oil of course. I have nothing like the pictures I've seen here of oil getting slug all around the tire and I have no oil inside that rim as well. I was simply getting my rotors tuned and the shop went to inspect my rear breaks and gave me the bad news. I jumped under tonight and the breather valve was stuck and I sprayed brake cleaner on it and it's free again, have a new on on the way.

Question is, can I let it ride? Firestone (who turned the rotors) wants $900 with new bearing, and shoes, seals, everything (National seals). Dealer wants $1,400. Opinions are appreciated. Is it possible this is a fluke and I can ride for 1000's of miles with no worries? My only concern at this point is safety and braking. Diff wear as well.
 
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Confirm their findings. They say soaked, it should be leaking out somewhere. Make sure they're telling you the truth and then go from there.
 
I would not give it to firestone! I would never trust them with anything even remotely complex (of course this varies by location but my experiences with them have been horrid)

If you don't change the bearings, just changing the seals is cheap and relatively easy. It might solve your issue, the bearings while usually in need of replacement are not necessarily bad and you can always change them down the road.
The theory with the bearings is that the lighter diff oil washes out the heavier sealed bearing grease and ruins the bearing, it sounds like you caught the issue early and if I were you I would try and just change the seals myself. It should take one day of wrenching and if my memory serves me correctly something like 100 bucks in parts.
BigFish's writeup is invaluable and makes doing the job super easy, its intimidating at first but really not that bad once you get your hands dirty.
 
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Don't let it go too long, the gear oil washes the grease out of the wheel bearing, then you have to change it. If the bearing is not making noise, just change the seal and you are good to go. It's one of the easiest jobs to do on this truck, just need the right tools.
 
As stated above, confirm that it is actually leaking by pulling off the drum to check if gear oil is covering the brake components. If there's no gear oil, now would be a good time to spray the inside of the drum and brake parts with brake cleaner and clean everything up and adjust the rear brakes.

If it is leaking, I would go with toyota parts. I helped my friend replace his rear axle seals and wheel bearings a couple months ago & I think it was around $500 for all the parts from a local dealer (not including the brake parts b/c he already had brake parts which we replaced also). We tried removing the parts off the axle ourselves using a cut off wheel to cut through the parts. We got about 75% of the parts off but it was getting too risking trying to avoid cutting into the axle shaft so we ended up taking it to a shop to have the parts pressed off the axle and new parts pressed on.
 
careful if you do your seals. I had to do them twice.

After replacing the seal and having the same leak again, I concluded that the toyota dealertard had pressed the sealing ring on the axle way, way too far. Had to back it off over one inch.

Look at the measurements first. Then install your new seal.
 
I have the same problem and I have grease all inside my drivers side wheel I'm just going to replace the outer seals and see if that fixes the problem, passenger side just leaks a little so that will be done too and I'm going to dothe brakes too since I get parts at cost
 
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diverscale said:
careful if you do your seals. I had to do them twice.

After replacing the seal and having the same leak again, I concluded that the toyota dealertard had pressed the sealing ring on the axle way, way too far. Had to back it off over one inch.

Look at the measurements first. Then install your new seal.
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention it but that ^ is very important.
 
Definitely read BigFish's write up and the posts, it's a long read. If you've determined the diff breather is clogged and the seal hasn't leaked for very long, you could wait it out to see if it gets worse. The grease in the bearings will definitely have been washed out with gear oil. How much longer they will last, who knows.

If you are having the bearings pressed off, MAKE SURE you understand where the retainer needs to be positioned. It is extremely crucial and anywhere other than a Toyota dealer will probably not have enough experience with this such that they will not press the retainer into the proper position. Make sure you tell the shop doing it how crucial the retainer position is and tell them to do the "grease test". A shop will likely just measure what the spacing is before and re-press everything back to the original position. This is NOT going to work...the retainer needs to be located 2mm further inboard! This is the trickiest and most critical part of the job. Everything else is pretty straightforward.

I would also not go with the small shop because anything less than the OEM Toyota seal and you are risking another leak. The National and Timken seals do not have the same level of flexibility in the rubber seal as the OEM part.
 
Just did my driver's side rear axle seal job at 294,000 miles a few days ago. Used all Toyota oem parts. Job in not very hard, just time consuming. Had a machine shop do all the bearing replacement. Rented from Autozone a three jaw slide hammer seal puller and also a seal driver kit. Both worked very well and are highly recommended for this job. Replaced brake shoes, wheel cyl., and drum hardware. Very high level of satisfaction after doing this job. :lookout:
 
brian4t said:
Fellow Forum members,

I was informed my 2001 TR4 with 158K has a 'soaked' rear passenger drum, gear oil of course. I have nothing like the pictures I've seen here of oil getting slug all around the tire and I have no oil inside that rim as well. I was simply getting my rotors tuned and the shop went to inspect my rear breaks and gave me the bad news. I jumped under tonight and the breather valve was stuck and I sprayed brake cleaner on it and it's free again, have a new on on the way.

Question is, can I let it ride? Firestone (who turned the rotors) wants $900 with new bearing, and shoes, seals, everything (National seals). Dealer wants $1,400. Opinions are appreciated. Is it possible this is a fluke and I can ride for 1000's of miles with no worries? My only concern at this point is safety and braking. Diff wear as well.
Click to expand...

My 4runner was leaking inside the drum but not slinging around the rim or tire. Me, a toyota technician, knew it had to be the axle seal on the outside of the bearing. Its not the typical housing one that often leaks. Using all OEM toyota parts, luckily I get mine at cost, still ran me about $530 in just parts for both sides. 2 bearings, 2 abs wheels, 2 housing seals, 2 Orings, 4 retainers, 2 snap rings, 2 drums and a set of rear brake shoes and 3 quarts of gear oil. Dealerships normally charge 3-4hrs per axle to install everything new. So i could believe the $1400 at the dealership. Took me about 2 hours per side to cut the retainers, press the axle out of the bearing, press the bearing out of the hub then reinstall all the new parts. Also went ahead and replaced and extended the rear diff breather. No problems or leaks yet.
 
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Agreed, do it all now and be done. I tried to half ass mine and just do the seals, but the bearings started growling about 6 months later.
 
See what a shop wants to do the job in LABOR only if you don't want to deal with the obligation yourself. Pressing it together, leaking potential, ect.

I just did mine myself, ~$120 for machine shop to press new bearings on. I had some additional work, or it was quoted cheaper. Then it was ~$280 for parts. Use ALL OEM stuff!

There are parts on these trucks to use OEM on and others that aren't as crucial. This is one of the times where you use ONLY factory seals/bearings and be done with it.

Get your own parts, Camelback or use an employee discount type deal at the dealership. Then have someone else do the labor if you aren't comfortable. My .02
 
If your breather was blocked, you might get away with just replacing that. Pressure builds up due to frictional heating causing thermal expansion of the air in the axle, which can cause oil to start creeping past the seals. It doesn't mean the seals are necessarily damaged.

I would change the breather and keep a very close eye on the wheels. For gear oil to be washing grease out of those sealed bearings, there would need to be a lot coming out, certainly enough to see without taking the drum off.

If a new breather does not cure the leak, then for sure it's time to pull the axle shafts and replace the seals.

For safety's sake though, I would take the drum off and spray brake cleaner or alcohol on the inner surfaces of the drums and shoes to make sure they are not contaminated with oil. If you do this at the same time as replacing the new breather, it will give you a reference to check against to see if oil is still weeping from the axle.
 
This^^ Replace the breather, remove the drum and clean it thoroughly. Drive it for a hundred miles and pull the drum again. If you have oil in it the second time then do the seals and bearings.
 
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