i have 1997 ram 2500 4x4 with the 360. My rear pinion seal is leaking very bad. I feel like this is something i will tackle in my driveway (or a friends heated garage). I know it can't be that involved, but i have never done one before. Any advice/pointers on this would be appreciated.
Thanks, Brian

 

It is fairly involved.. If you over-toque the nut when installing it you will crush the crush sleeve further, increasing the pinion bearing pre-load. Mark exacly where the pinion nut is on the pinion and torque it back to exactly where it was before, it's best to use red loc-tite on the nut as well.

 

I wouldn't even call if that involved. Drop the shaft, remove yoke on pinon, pry out old seal, install new one and reassemble. Its easy, only took me about a half hour. And for the record I had never changed one before.

 

I'm up in the air over doing this myself or taking it to a shop. I would consider myself a middle of the road mechanic. I have replaced a 4-cylinder head gasket and done an engine swap in my garage but driveline stuff kinda scares me. Is this all there is to it when slapping it back together? I read somewhere you want to go slightly past your marks when reinstalling.

Rob

 

Pinion nut is supposed to torqued down to the point that the pinion shaft has a specific rotational torque. (takes x amount of torque to make it turn.) Procedure is in the FSM, which is available in the FAQ section.

 

I read through that, kinda confusing.... The nut is at 210 ft/lb or more, but you want it to take 10 in/lbs more than it took to turn it before starting lol

Rob

 

I ended up taking it to the dealer. $16 for the seal and just under $100 for labor. Well worth it in my opinion. I would have messed with it for several hours I'm sure

Rob

 

I did mine and I had never done one before. I rear everything here on the forum and it worked great. Plus then I replaced the u joints in the driveshaft while i was at it. I had never done a ujoint before. The ujoints were harder to do than the pinion seal.

Ya gotta try some things when you own a Dodge truck otherwise youll go broke taking it to a dealer. We have 7 Dodge vehicles between two of us so its learn to wrench on them or ???

 

He has a 2500 (assuming HD) so he has a Dana 60 rear which uses shims. No crush sleeve to worry about.

 

Good to know