I have a leak on my (2004, 78K miles) final drive pumpkin, on the wheel side under the plastic cover ring - as best as I can figure.
Originally I thought it was the typically-implied seepage of moly from the splines, as many people have indicated; so I just kept an eye on fluid levels and cleaned it up each time. Gear Oil level was never noticeably low, and after clean-up it would take a few hundred miles for the grunge to reappear along the bottom of the unit.
Now that I'm replacing driven-flange bearings this week I took a much closer look at the pumpkin and see that there's a moderate amount of "wet oil seepage" evidence on the wheel side of the pumpkin, under the plastic guard ring, and the closest I can come to a diagnosis is that the seal around the spline/cup is the culprit. It's pretty grungy now after a good 30K+ miles since this was first noticed, so it's not entirely clear if that seal is indeed leaking.
Since removing/replacing the wheel isn't a trivial job, it's not very easy to trace the actual culprit of this leak, so I'm thinking I will order and replace this seal. The service manual only calls for a whole process of tearing down the entire pumpkin, something I think I can avoid for this procedure, but I thought I would ask if anyone else has done this.
As near as I can tell I should be able to carefully drill a couple tiny holes in the seal body, place small screws, and use them to pull the seal out, and then place the new seal back on over the spline/cup. Anyone know if I'm off base, here?
And similarly, anyone else followed this diagnostic process and find out that it was something else besides the dust seal?
Originally I thought it was the typically-implied seepage of moly from the splines, as many people have indicated; so I just kept an eye on fluid levels and cleaned it up each time. Gear Oil level was never noticeably low, and after clean-up it would take a few hundred miles for the grunge to reappear along the bottom of the unit.
Now that I'm replacing driven-flange bearings this week I took a much closer look at the pumpkin and see that there's a moderate amount of "wet oil seepage" evidence on the wheel side of the pumpkin, under the plastic guard ring, and the closest I can come to a diagnosis is that the seal around the spline/cup is the culprit. It's pretty grungy now after a good 30K+ miles since this was first noticed, so it's not entirely clear if that seal is indeed leaking.
Since removing/replacing the wheel isn't a trivial job, it's not very easy to trace the actual culprit of this leak, so I'm thinking I will order and replace this seal. The service manual only calls for a whole process of tearing down the entire pumpkin, something I think I can avoid for this procedure, but I thought I would ask if anyone else has done this.
As near as I can tell I should be able to carefully drill a couple tiny holes in the seal body, place small screws, and use them to pull the seal out, and then place the new seal back on over the spline/cup. Anyone know if I'm off base, here?
And similarly, anyone else followed this diagnostic process and find out that it was something else besides the dust seal?
