Harry0912

I changed my front axle seals in late September with now problems. Fast forward to now and the seal is leaking again. Is this nominal?

Sixty4x4

If you did not clean the hell out of the axle tube prior to reinstall then my guess would be the axle dragged in some scaly crap sitting on the bottom of the tube and coated the edge of the seal with it which caused the seal to get chewed out. Plus there are some white UHMW 'washers' matching the axle spline that go on the axle spline prior to install and they keep the axle end off the floor of the tube while installing. Use a scraper made from a large flat washer mounted on a piece of 1/4" threaded rod then a wet/dry vacuum with small pipe attached to get the dry crap out.

Harry0912

Hey thanks for the reply, I did clean the tube out with brake cleaner and a rag on the end of a long pipe but I didn’t use a vacuum. Guess I’ll try that next.

resharp001

Did you lube up the axle shafts before putting them back in? It doesn't take much to nick a new seal when putting the shafts in if you're not super careful.

Sixty4x4

Thats why the vacuum with a short piece of 1" PVC pipe taped to the end works better as sometimes a rag can stir up the crud and put some on the seal. Also scrape the hell out of the tube with the scraper I described. Lift it over the dirt while going in then scrape it out. Vacuum to finish, then use the proper spacer I mentioned. I put axles back into existing seals, doing the above, that were in before I ever bought the Jeep and no leaks after more than a year. Some real fine emery on the axle seal area helps a bit - just a clean no more. Use 2000 grit emery.