I normally do everything myself but I've never waded into the waters of gear swaps. The thought of not loading the bearing right and causing catastrophic failure led me to take it to a shop and have it all done by people who say they know how and offer a 12 month warranty on their work. So I took 2015 Rubicon to a shop in Austin and had them install 4.88 gears. That was about 3 weeks ago and yesterday I noticed both rear wheels had dif fluid on the inside. I'm not in the mood to deal with the shop that did the work for a couple of different reasons, and wondering if this is something I can fix myself. To be honest I don't even know how that seal is set up on each side. The more information you guys can provide, the better. The breather doesn't appear to plugged with anything other than what was put in their from the factory. If this has already been covered on another thread I apologize. I tried looking around quite a bit before posting. Thanks


Could this just be a case of loose bolts?
What kind of seals are in the rear axle?
How hard would it be to fix?

 

Fairly simple if you have the right tool. Pull the brakes and rotors, remove abs sensor and take the 4bolts out for the seal retainer. After that the axle should slide right out, you then have to press the bearing off the axle shaft to get the seal and retainer off. Put a new seal retainer, seal and bearing pressed on the shaft then reinstall. It takes about an hour per side if everything goes well, problems can come from not having a way to press bearings on/off and I've had problems with the studs pressed in the seal retainer spinning free when trying to remove the nuts, always use a new one.

 

Thanks. I'm gonna try and figure out a way to get this done myself. I'm worried why the seal are leaking at 16,000 miles, even if I did just have the gears swapped out.

 

I've also read a lot of people pulling them and applying a thin film of RTV. Anyone really try this and had positive results? I think I'll try this route first, especially if someone confirms it.

 

You can upgrade to Ten Factory chromoly shafts and purchase them with the retainers, bearing and seal already installed. Just sayin'.

 

Yeah I spoke to Northridge 4x4 and they're running a special of $400 for the set. I pulled them yesterday and applied rtv black and it seemed to have stopped the leaking for now. If it starts up again I'll just order the shafts complete and rebuild these for spares. Never hurts to have spare axle shafts anyways.