Replacing front diff seal (the one near the hub)

Round 2!

This morning I fitted a new Allmakes driveshaft seal (for the second time in a few weeks), after my previous effort was leaking again.

Here's a pic of the seal (fitted with this side facing out)



And the other side (this side facing the diff oil)



And here's my super special home made LRT.



The previous seal I reckon I may not have pushed it all the way hard up against the fitting face, and I also put a bit of a dent in it when pushing it home.

Here's a pic with the old seal out and everything cleaned up. You can just make out some of the gouges in the lhs (probably done by me), and another smaller one on the other side.




And this is the new seal fitted. It still sits proud by a mm or so. Is that normal for this seal?



I saw that both the ball joints on the steering knuckle had been done. Someone bashed the crap out of it by the looks..



The ****ty drive I made worked better than last time, but still didn't manage to seat it true all the way in. I finished it with a few more taps from a bit of cut off broom handle...

Hopefully this will be the last time I need to do this side for a while... At least it took me about 3hrs this time instead of 3 days! The driveshaft went straight back in - once I'd learnt the trick from last time.

Was stumped for a few minutes trying to work out which way the little blue ABS sensor bracket fits, but realised it only goes on one way anyway.

Off to Birmingham tomorrow, and picking up a key fob, dimmer and binnacle. Plenty more jobs on the Disco to do when I get back.

i`m 99.999forever% that seal should be the other way round.

xat44 said:

i`m 99.999forever% that seal should be the other way round.

Click to expand...

well Im 110% that seal is in the wrong way around (sorry)

The lip goes on the outside as it runs on the mud shield face on the driveshaft.

Nooooooooooo.... Oh FFS, tell me I don't have to do it again.. Some people were never meant to have a spanner in their hand

At least I've still got one more spare seal left. Sounds like I'll be doing another job when I get back home in a few days.

Back home again after a quick trip to Birmingham. Only my second time there but have to say that the canal area with all the pubs and restaurants was pretty damn nice. Have to make another trip back in the Summer sometime..

So, I got ready to go for round three with that fu$&@in oil seal again, and took the wheel off to have a bit of a look (it already had a few hours motorway driving on it so far). Lucky me, it was still as dry as a nun's fanny. I'm going to leave it be for a while and wait till it's making a mess before I replace it again - this time the right way round.

On to the next job - rear wheel hub o-ring. This one's been leaking for a while and needed to be done too.

Opened it up and here's what I found:







Looks like someone had it out and tried to stop it leaking with sealant, then refitted it with the old o-ring.... I'm guessing it was done just before I bought it...

Anyway I cleaned it all up, taking an hour or so to scrape off all the sealant, then gave it a new o-ring and put it all back together.

It was a much easier job than the front driveshaft oil seal was!