rear axle seals (1 Viewer)

[Stecz]

I have a squeak coming from the RR of my 97 LX and it's become annoying. In an attempt to get figure out what was squeaking, I removed the RR axle and hub. The bearings look like a fair amount of gear lube has washed them clean. My confusion is. Which seal keeps the grease and gear lube separated? Is there supposed to be a seal in the outer end of the spindle?

I don't have gear lube leaking out of the hub anywhere, so it's not leaking real bad yet.

After packing the bearings with new grease, I still have the squeak, so I don't think it's the bearings, but I think I have a full rear axle service in my future. (new seals, clean and repack bearings, but do it better this time).

thoughts?

 

[BILT4ME]

There is a seal that's supposed to be on the INSIDE of the spindle that seals the axle shaft to the inside of the spindle.

I believe it is @Tools R Us that does not replace them when he rebuilds and has no issues. Many other makes run with gear oil flooding the rear bearings on the FF axles and there is no issue, as long as the gear oil is not leaking out the seals onto the wheels or brakes.

If you were in that far, why didn;t you check the parking brake and all of it's linkages and cables and shoes? You were there, man!

 

[Stecz]

I was expecting a seal on the end of the spindle and there is a wear mark on the end of the axle, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a seal there.
If someone removed the seal to run the bearings on gear lube, they did a crap job of cleaning the grease out of the hub, because it was packed with really crappy grease.

I didn't think about the emergency brake... I was focused on the bearings.
It only takes a few minutes to disassemble, so I think I will purchase the rear axle seals and bearing seals and do a really good re-pack and inspect the parking brake then.

I think I will see if moving the parking brake handle changes the squeak (granted I don't want to drive around much with the parking brake engaged)

thanks for the input.

 

[BILT4ME]

Make sure the grease you use in the wheel bearings is compatible with the oil in the differential (don't use Dino in one and Synthetic in the other) because they WILL mix over time. Some grease/oil combos don't play well together and will clump into peanut butter.

I use the basic 80W-90 (85W-90) MasterPro gear oil from O'Reilly or whomever. The wheel bearing grease I use is Lucas Red-N-Tacky #2. I have confirmed with Lucas that it works fine with standard gear oil and it is also designed for wheel bearings of this sort.

 

[Stecz]

great hint, thanks... I will make sure of that... I have drained and filled the diff lube with synthetic a good while ago, so I'll do a drain and fill on that when I do the hub/axle seals.

 

[inkpot]

There is a seal that's supposed to be on the INSIDE of the spindle that seals the axle shaft to the inside of the spindle.

I believe it is @Tools R Us that does not replace them when he rebuilds and has no issues. Many other makes run with gear oil flooding the rear bearings on the FF axles and there is no issue, as long as the gear oil is not leaking out the seals onto the wheels or brakes.

If you were in that far, why didn;t you check the parking brake and all of it's linkages and cables and shoes? You were there, man!

My rig is one of many running around the Phoenix area without any end seal in the rear axle. Mine is flood lubricated with gear oil. I run 37's, I wheel often, and I occasionally wheel with 5000# dragging on my hitch for hauling tools/supplies/fill material for trail repairs. No problems yet. My rig is on the verge of turning 200,000 miles, and I see no reason to change my setup. John

 

[Stecz]

If you run flood lubricated, do you make sure that the rear diff is over-full? When I removed the axle, very little gear oil leaked out, so that doesn't seem like enough to lube the bearings?

Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the bearings are a big part of the squeaking, after messing with them and putting some additional grease on them (I didn't have replacement seals to do a full clean and re-pack). The squeaking has mostly stopped. So I was planning on getting a replacement inner seal, at least, and completely clean the old grease out of the hub. I got a lot of it out the other day, but the inner bearing is definitely not getting much gear lube on it.

 

[gummycarbs]

Swerve more.

I'm doing my rear axle right now. The seals are cheap. Much simpler than the front. Given that people basically never repack their rear bearings and they still last hundreds of thousands of miles, I don't see any reason to diverge from Toyota's design.

 

[inkpot]

I don't add any extra gear oil. The bearings seem to stay well lubricated. From what we have seen, almost every rig we have checked has gear oil in the bearings. Those seals seem to fail within 20-50,000 miles, but rigs that have never been serviced in 200,000+ miles still have perfectly good bearings as long as they had agaquate gear oil in the axe. Nothing wrong with packing grease in there and installing the seals, but it kinda seems inevitable that gear oil will be performing the job in the future.

 

[nukegoat]

There is a seal that's supposed to be on the INSIDE of the spindle that seals the axle shaft to the inside of the spindle.

I believe it is @Tools R Us that does not replace them when he rebuilds and has no issues. Many other makes run with gear oil flooding the rear bearings on the FF axles and there is no issue, as long as the gear oil is not leaking out the seals onto the wheels or brakes.

If you were in that far, why didn;t you check the parking brake and all of it's linkages and cables and shoes? You were there, man!

Just like an american full floater. Love it

 

[inkpot]

Just like an american full floater. Love it

So, your thinkin that Toyota copied more than just the Chevy inline six cylinder engine?

 

[bajaphile]

Just did my rear axle due to re-gear, and replaced the inner axle seals. The hub cavity was still packed with Toyota OE honey colored grease and not a drop of differential oil in there. I couldn't believe it. Felt bad pulling the wheel bearings out, cleaning everything and repacking...

 

[inkpot]

Just did my rear axle due to re-gear, and replaced the inner axle seals. The hub cavity was still packed with Toyota OE honey colored grease and not a drop of differential oil in there. I couldn't believe it. Felt bad pulling the wheel bearings out, cleaning everything and repacking...

Obviously sir, you dont rally/drive nearly fast enough on the turns, or wheel off camber often enough to get that gear oil over to the bearings enough!!

 

[gummycarbs]

I just replaced my rear wheel bearings and axle seals at 256k miles. I think it was probably never done before.

The center cavities were still completely full of surprisingly clean honey-colored MP grease:

The right side clearly had some gear oil mixing, but not enough to have washed the grease out:

The left side looked like the axle seal had kept any gear oil out. There was some weird orange stuff that I thought was rust, but there was no sign of rust on the bearings or housing...

 

[flintknapper]

gummycarbs wrote:

"The left side looked like the axle seal had kept any gear oil out. There was some weird orange stuff that I thought was rust, but there was no sign of rust on the bearings or housing..."


^^^^^ That's 'seal' poop. Sea-Lions actually.