pinion seal leaking

[speedfreak1000]

I had gears installed a few years back. about a year ago I noticed a little gear oil in the driveway, since I didn't drive it much i'd just top it off every few months. well after building the garage i noticed it was quit a bit leaking out so today I pulled the pinion seal out before I put a new one back is there anything I should check for? here are some pics, the shim that was in front of the bearing is dented alittle...should I replace it?








I just don't want to put a new seal in and it still leak.

 

[QuickShift281]

The "shim" isnt a shim, its a oil slinger. Ive never seen one that is completely flat. No need to worry IMHO. Clean everything up well. When putting the new seal in, use a thing coat of Black RTV around the the sealing surface of the pinion seal. Put a fairly liberal amount of Black RTV on the splines of the pinion flange after cleaning it up.

Since you pulled the pinion nut off to remove flange and seal. You NEED to use a new nut and crush sleeve. If you reuse the nut, at some point, the nut will back off and you will suck the pinion into the carrier and ring gear. Which isn't pretty in the slightest bit.

Install with the proper install procedure.

 

[speedfreak1000]

thanks for the heads up.

 

[01yellerCobra]

Doesn't he have to pull the pinion in order to change the crush sleeve?

 

[eighty6gt]

Voodoo magic. If you marked the nut's position w.r.t. the pinion, you can screw it back on with high strength locker (clean the threads and the nut and then tighten it an "amount" past your marks.)

This saves you from removing the carrier, dropping the oil, etc.

YMMV. I have done this in the past and the cars ran until I sold them and they were crashed into the woods by hillbilllies.

 

[Tbone]

YMMV. I have done this in the past and the cars ran until I sold them and they were crashed into the woods by hillbilllies.

Offtopic but that sounds like a good story lol

 

[lenko]

Just fixed my leaky pinion seal by installing a solid spacer and shims. Had to take diff. apart to do that. Did it on jack stands so there wasn't much room for maneuvering the torque wrench to remove the pinion nut, so off came the axle backs and mid pipes and even then I could only move the wrench 6 to 8 inches. Took a while.
Prior to this I checked the pinion preload and backlash. Once the pinion was out I measured the crush sleeve and installed the solid spacer and shim which was a couple thousands smaller. Installed with old nut and no seal and measured pinion preload which ended up the same 12 1/2 inch lbs and backlash which was also slightly less but at 7 1/2 to 8 thousands. Put extra thread lock on new nut, some high heat red sealant on seal and pinion splines. Tightened it up, cold punched the nut in a few places and installed 3 qts of Redline 75-140 gear oil. All seems to be good now.
If seal goes again I won't have take everything apart, just replace the seal and tighten the nut. My view is that it was not easy but in the long run worth it.

 

[BruceH]

Just fixed my leaky pinion seal by installing a solid spacer and shims. Had to take diff. apart to do that. Did it on jack stands so there wasn't much room for maneuvering the torque wrench to remove the pinion nut, so off came the axle backs and mid pipes and even then I could only move the wrench 6 to 8 inches. Took a while.
Prior to this I checked the pinion preload and backlash. Once the pinion was out I measured the crush sleeve and installed the solid spacer and shim which was a couple thousands smaller. Installed with old nut and no seal and measured pinion preload which ended up the same 12 1/2 inch lbs and backlash which was also slightly less but at 7 1/2 to 8 thousands. Put extra thread lock on new nut, some high heat red sealant on seal and pinion splines. Tightened it up, cold punched the nut in a few places and installed 3 qts of Redline 75-140 gear oil. All seems to be good now.
If seal goes again I won't have take everything apart, just replace the seal and tighten the nut. My view is that it was not easy but in the long run worth it.

The solid spacer is the way to do it imo. Especially if you launch off of drag radials. I screwed up a couple of quiet gear installs by launching off of drag radials and compressing the crush sleeve a little.

The last gear install was done with a solid spacer and the gears are still quiet 4+ years later.

 

[TexasBlownV8]

Good point, Bruce, about the spacer. This would also explain some of the "I messed it up drag racing" rear end issues I've encountered.

lenko, sounds like you did it RIGHT.

speedfreak1000, you should have measured preload before removing the pinion nut, as you otherwise don't know how tight to get the nut without doing that; although you can use the general 'used' preload torgue specs. You need to use a new nut, or as noted, put rtv on the pinion splines; a new nut prevents fluid leakage as it seals against the flange. Also put extra red loctite on the nut.