Rear Axle Seals: The Ultimate Information and Replacement Thread (3rd gen)

[Drcoffee]

Back off the rear brake shoes so they wont bind if they get oil soaked. Then drive carefully.

 

[g0shj0sh10]

wow awesome write up man

 

[BunkySr]

nice thread

Awesome thread..maybe I should do mine before Im forced to.
Anyone ever put discs on the rear and forget worrying about doing all that work.

 

[whereiswill]

Anyone ever put discs on the rear and forget worrying about doing all that work.

The rear disc conversion would be a huge amount of work, but would not spare you from having the bearings and sleeves installed correctly. Besides that, if the seal leaked, the oil would still fling all over the brakes.

 

[Jason B]

Quick question: Is this a repair that can wait? I discovered it today... it was just greasy around the rear drum brake. It was only evident when I took the brake apart. I have to drive to Maine and back in the next 2 weeks and don't have time to deal with it until then. My differential fluid was still nice and full. What do you think? And I good to do my road trip and then worry about this? I have noticed no issues braking. 2000 4runner. Thanks!

Mine has actually been leaking on the left for 4 years and rides smooth as glass. Keep eye on fluid in diff. Now right side started. Going to do both soon. I don't drive this truck a lot, but I don't think there's many that wait and I don't think it's an issue to wait if you make sure fluid is topped.

 

[KidVermicious]

See my reply, quoted above, from a couple posts back...

BUT... I owe you one man, so I went ahead and paid to have the account upgraded. That should get the pictures re-activated here shortly... Now go bust it out!

Hopefully this will stop all the PM's I've been getting, too. I never realized how many people are using these write-ups until the pictures stopped working and the PM's started rolling in.

Hey, are you still paying to host those pics? If so I need your Paypal address so I can help out. I found them useful as hell.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Thanks for the offer, Kevin.

After the last episode of the pictures not showing up, I created a third photobucket album that is entirely dedicated to housing the write up photos for all of my write ups on the forum. I also resized all of the photos, migrated them to the new photobucket account, and went through each write-up and changed all the link targets.

The re-sizing reduces the bandwidth used every time one of the pictures is viewed on the photobucket servers, and having a dedicated account for them prevents them from having to share bandwidth with the pics in my build threads, etc.

It took a few hours, but it seems to have fixed the problem.

 

[Jason B]

So, is the consensus now that you shouldn't put the new seals/bearings in by hand anymore?

 

[KelOfTheRockies]

Thanks for taking what appears to be a LOT of time to build this post. I expect that will come in handy for me in the future with just over 270Kmiles on my SR5

Thanks!

- k -

 

[repo]

So really all you need to do this at home is the durasolid tool for about $170 shipped and a harbor freight 20 ton shop press for about $160 after the ubiquitous 20% coupon.

I'm still not sure what to pull the seal out with after reading the whole thread. Harbor freight doesn't sell the nightstick looking puller from OP anymore, I got a 2 hooks type puller from autozone but it didn't work without marring the housing. I'd going to see if I can rent a slide hammer kit from advance auto and see if that works.

 

[Jason B]

You can easily use a flat head screw driver and tap the seal until it bends a little and it will come right out. Very easy.

 

[whereiswill]

The hook style seal remover would be ideal, but I used a small crowbar and backed it up with a towel to protect the lip of the axle housing.
The trick to using any tool which pivots on a fulcrum is to keep repositioning the tool to be sure not to cut a groove in the machined surface around the seal with the sharp tip of the tool.

 

[repo]

Update:

I was pretty worried about scratching up the housing and I tried the $10 hook style tool first and gouged the edge where I was leveraging against even though I had a shop rag underneath (I hope that edge doesn't matter).

So then I went to Advance auto and rented an axle puller slide hammer kit, wrapped one of the puller attachments with electrical tape and carefully pulled out the seal in about 30 seconds.

You can see the scratch on the right side edge (doesn't look as bad IRL):

This worked great:

 

[camofreak]

Good info. Getting ready to do mine.

 

[repo]

You can also borrow a seal & race driver set from autozone/advance, but I haven't checked if they are the right width yet, and they are dinged up from previous people so more prone to scratch something. Maybe wrap it in tape again. But they cost about $30 from harbour freight.

 

[mendozer]

ok potentially dumb question here. Looking at the parts list and some say "one per side". Is that meaning one per axle or one per side of the axle (like inside and outside)?

 

[whereiswill]

Side meaning driver side and passenger side.

 

[mendozer]

K that's what I thought but I wanted to double check as I make a part pricing list. Also, the tutorial says to fill up with a quart. Wouldn't it just be more prudent to fully drain the rear diff then fill up fresh with your 2.6 or 2.9 quarts (depending on locker)?

 

[kissmybass]

Hi all, happy new owner of a 99 T4R SR5 4x4 with 147k miles (bought it 2 days ago). Went to replace the tires and realized the drums were "wet" looking (wish I had found these when negotiating the price!). I'm guessing it's the problem the OP described. Driver side much wetter than the passenger.

Do you guys think I can get away with JUST changing the INNER seal? I'm guessing if there's not much play in the wheel bearing, I should be OK?

What gear oil do you guys recommend for the differential?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mendozer]

ooh idk that looks like mine. It's been leaking for a while. The preventative maintenance person in me says to replace all of it, which I'm planning for mine.