Nobody has seen the seal I have seen...

[knorrena]

A little while ago I did a whole lot of searching and reading about my leaky front output seal on my transfer case. There was no conclusive information, which lead me to request for some feedback about changing it out:

http://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-te...-my-tcase.html

and here:

http://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-te...l-leaking.html

At that time there was also a thread started asking about windshield wipers. It got a whole bunch more feedback than my question did. I took this as a sign that few folks had any experience doing this. Ultimately Christo provided some guidance over the phone, as did CDan. Thanks guys.

So here is a my brief and likely never to be referenced in the future thread about my changing out the front output tcase seal.

First I would like to dispell a myth I found out there about doing the front output seal (FOS). The myth states that the whole tcase has to come out to get it done because one of the extension cone bolts cant be accessed.

This is not true. All of the bolts can be accessed; however, the front extension housing cannot be removed with the rest of the tcase inplace because of how the tcase adapter housing bolts up to the tcase. The first picture below shows the pesky little bolt that gets in the way.

One could trim the 2mm that get in the way but I did not for fear of doing more harm than good. One could also seperate the tcase and tranny the extra 0.5 inch or so required to get the front extension housing house, but I did not for fear of causing more harm than good. You guessed it, I took the whole tcase out anyway.

There is not enough room to get at all the wire harnesses and bolts with the tranny crossmember in place. I removed 6 of the 8 bolts, I left the two outside frame bolts on the drivers side in place and used a bottle jack to lower the tcase enough to be able to get at everything. I heaved that thing out, layed it on lyh chest and creeped out, layed it on the ground, got up and put it on my bench.

About an hour after placing the tcase on the bench I found out my sore foot, from a moutain biking incident 2 months prior was sore for a good reason. My wife, an ER nurse, took me to work to meet the ortho doc on at the time. Xrays revealed that I had broken my foot. I came home with a cast and crutches. I will have these for 2 months. This was bad timing.

Nevertheless, my cruiser passion prevailed and I continued to change out the seal while my wife was at work.

The next pic shows the front extension housing and the fancy aparatus that I used to remove the collar gear that slides back and forth on to lock and unlock the tcase. This fancy apparatus consisted of a steering wheel puller and some readi rod used to make the puller long enough. The next pic shows the gear removed. I was surprised at how much force it required for removal.

[knorrena]

The next pic shows the inside of the extension housing after the tcase locking gear is removed. The next step is to remove the output shaft. The only way I could figure out how to this was to use readi rod stands and beat the shaft out with my dead blow hammer. The second pic shows the stands I used post shaft removal. I stressed over this because I was concerned for the bearing. I should have replaced the bearing while in there but did not because a new one was a week away, I needed the truck for a camping trip right away and I had a broken foot. The truck has seen about 300 miles of highway towing since with no ill effects noted.

I carefully inspected the shaft. I was worried that the surface the seal rides on would have a groove, and indeed it did. The groove is barely perceptible with my highly sensitive fingernail. I failed to get a pic of the part of the extension housing where the seal sits, and I really regret this. Most times the machined part where the seal gets inserted into has a stop machined in to stop the seal from going in to far. The front extension housing has no such thing. I think this is to allow one to reposition the seal so that the groove from an old seal can be avoided. Thus I attempted to install the seal deep enough to avoid the old groove but not so deep as to miss the machined surface on the output shaft. So far it does not leak, so I think I was successful. The last pic in the post shows said groove.

[knorrena]

The next pic shows the output shaft reinstalled and the next one shows the tcase in all its colossal glory.

From this point on I have no good pics; however, none are needed as the TSM does a good job of explaining (you do have a TSM dont you?). Heaving the tcase back in place was a chore, but doable. Nothing about this job was particularly difficult, or strange (other than the seating of the seal), so I have no hot tips to provide except make sure your foot aint broke because that slows you up quite a lot.

The tranny temp idiot light lit for about 15 seconds when I restarted it, but I have not seen it lit since.

The astute reader will notice that I used Lucas tcase juice. It seems to work fine. We will see once it gets cold out.

Cheers,

Karl

[Ebag333]

Excellent writeup! Thanks for sharing.

[concretejungle]

did you reseal the speedo while there? mine is leaking now.

[knorrena]

Nope. I did that last year when I put the new gear from slee in