Sanity check: rear axle seal?

[Fungus232]

So, Bronco has been sitting quite a bit. The FW 9" went in last fall timeframe with all new seals, bearings, etc. Filled it with gear oil and its been sitting a lot since. Got the matching front put in May/ June timeframe and took it for some short drives. We just moved to a new house out in town on the 1st and I drove it to the new place and parked in the carport. NO leaks! Our PODS showed up with all our junk on the 5th or so & I moved it to the curb on the street, NO leaks! Walk out this morn and the pass side rear axle seal looks to have sprung a pretty decent leak by evidence of a 90W puddle! WTF? The way its parked on the curb, the front end is higher than the rear and sitting slightly pass side low as well due to slope of road. Fluid overflow or definitely a bad axle seal out of the blue? You fellas got any ideas?

Thanks,
Fungus

[Efibroncoman]

Re: Sanity check: rear axle seal?

I'm saying definitely bad seal... although it is strange for it to just fail that quickly... The design of the newer style big bearing seals is very weird. Unfortunately you have to kill the press-on bearing keeper in order to change the seal.

[Fungus232]

Re: Sanity check: rear axle seal?

Well ain't that some shit!

[California Monkey]

Re: Sanity check: rear axle seal?

I agree. I usually use gasket seal on the outside of the seal where it meats the tube as a secondary backup seal. Then its up to the shaft seal to fail only.

[GREMLIN]

Re: Sanity check: rear axle seal?

i had to silcone the outside edge of the seal.

[pipelayer]

Re: Sanity check: rear axle seal?

I have the same problem but its a small leak with new axles and seals on the driver side.

[AV67]

Re: Sanity check: rear axle seal?

When I had my ring and pinion gear replaced this came up, the old stile axle bearings had a seal on the differential side of the bearing the new bearing type the seal looks like its part of the bearing and is between the bearing and mounting plate, I ended up changing the bearing retainer to a narrower one and ran both seals since the original intent was to prevent the gear oil from getting to the bearing and breaking down the grease lube or whatever you want to call what is on the bearing itself. so far no leaks and no seized bearings I drove it to Tahoe and thru the Rubicon so I've put some decent miles on it since I made the change, "seemed like a good idea at the time"