Axles worn where the seal rides? (highly unlikely)

Are you lubing the seals up good before you stick 'em in? Are they still in the right spot when they leak?

 

not putting them in backwards or anything?
sorry, had to ask.

seating them properly?
how are you seating them ?

 

I too had problems with timken seals, though their bearings are very good imho. It helps to run a flapper wheel over your sealing part of the axleshaft, the slab a coat of heavy grease over it, a thin one, install and you shouldnt have problems.

 

I hit the sealing surface of the axle shaft with some 400 grit sand paper before installing it just to be sure there wasn't anything on there that would eat up the seals.

Did you clean the axle tubes out before calling the job done? by that I mean scrape them out and hit them with brake cleaner?

When you pull the axle shafts out some diff fluid will leak over the top of the seal if you didn't drain the differential first and that will sit in the axle tube until you turn and g-forces make it roll on out to the end of the tube.

I made a crescent shaped scraper to scrape the crud out of the tubes and cleaned them with brake cleaner because that dissolves oil. Mine haven't leaked since doing them the first time.

 

this is a dumb question for dodgemagnum... when you are replacing your seals, are you replacing the ones at the INNER end of the tubes, down at the differential, or are you replacing only the little slingers out at the OUTER end of the tubes. sorry, had to ask, but the outer slingers are only mud deflectors and not real seals.

pics of the INNERS
http://www.pavementsucks.com/tech-article-3.html

 

yeah of course im replacign the inners. i know my truck better than that. and yeah im puttign them in right and i know they are pushed all the way in to where they should be, using some 5/8 threaded rod and 1 3/4" washers. the drivers side is not longer leaking it stoped, so it must have just been excess in the tube. the passeneger side is still leaking. i have cleaned it out with brake cleaner, greased the seals with silicone spray before installing them. every daMN seal i have taken out looks just as good as the new ones. the vent hose is all clear and im useing 80-90 fluid. passenger side is still leaking. ive put easily 20 hours into replacign these seals over and over again the past two months. is there such thing as stop leak for differentials maybe? im running out of options here.

 

I am beginning to think that it isn't the seals..... Might wanna pull the passenger side outer axle (again.... sorry...) and closely inspect the area the seal rides on.

Something else to look at would be the bushings and such that hold the axle centered. If one or more are worn, the axle will sit odd in the seal, and the seal will not be able to do its job.

 

FYI worn ball joints WILL CAUSE OLDER SEALS TO LEAK.

 

If installing the passenger side seal is giving you trouble, try a special tool like one of these: http://wahlstrommachine.com/SPECTOOL.pdf

 

hey dodgemagnum318 i'm having the same exact issue with axle seals leaking.were you able to resolve your problem? thanks