Rear Axle Bearings With Complications

[Kanoe]

I’m going to preface this my saying it’s been several years since I did this repair so it’s not as clear as it could be in memory.

I find your description of the seal to be a little funny, and the witness marks too. I’m suspecting that you have installed an old style seal and that’s why your measurements don’t jive. If you take a look on page 6 of dr coffee’s thread Tim has posted a photo of old style vs new.
Does the photo help? Can you tell which you got?


Looking at marlins page for the kit they are careful to say Toyota oem on some parts but they say stock for the seal which is a little odd.

I could be way off and if so, ignore this.
Either way, looks like you are making progress. Good job.

 

[WrenchTech]

I love how good pictures are with the newer smartphones. They are at least as good as my Canon DSLR from 10 years ago. Here is one of the stack as I was pressing the bearing and it's retaining ring. It's not my first choice. I would have liked to have supported the bearing more fully, but I tested it and the resistance on the outer surface of the bearing where it was engaging the bearing pocket was minimal. I got several pieces of steel like the one at the top of this stack for $1.50 each at my local recycling center, where I go to find all kinds of deals on steel. They recycle a lot of industrial stuff and agricultural machines, so the stuff I find is just mind-boggling. I see stuff I want every time I go there, but I would need a forklift to move a lot of it. The owners are kind enough to let me browse through what they have anytime I ask.

 

[WrenchTech]

Here is how I pulled the ABS wheel and the lock ring back up after I had pressed them on too far.

I really like doing it with the splitter/puller, as opposed to using Dwayne's puller plate, because I can see where the lock ring is at any moment, with Dwayne's tool I can't see lock ring position at all. That said, Dwayne's tool it's great for simply pulling the ABS wheel off.

 

[WrenchTech]

The seal I just got from Marlin has lips like the one on the right, the one Dr. says is the old style. Except the body of mine is not metal, or at least not bare metal. Mine looks like plastic. Being like the old style might explain my witness marks, and I may have misinterpreted what I see down by the lower shoulder that I was thinking is from a seal lip, which may not be. In any case, I think my seal is in a good spot.

 

[WrenchTech]

Well it is something like nine months later and now I am working on an oil leak from the rusty back cover of my rear axle housing. One thing that seems pretty certain though, is that there’s no oil leaking from the lock rings and seals I installed last fall. Now I’m pulling out the whole axle housing to get it ready to have a new back cover welded on.This will give me a chance to install new sway bar links, shocks, springs and maybe go over to disk brakes.