When I have to do it again, I'll take pictures. Hopefully someone else will do a proper writeup long before I need a new seal.

 

He seemed to be following a script on a laptop so I am hopeful that the directions from Mothership Mopar clearly stated to lay them down in a certain way and pick them up in a certain way.

I wonder how I will ever know besides ripping everything out and checking the hole alignment.

Amazingly he used a beam type torque wrench (I have never seen this at a dealership) on the cap bolts, but couldn't tell if he made sure to not let the pivoting handle rest on the bar if you know what I mean. I would so rather just do stuff like this myself, but heck it is under warranty so they own it for 7/70 according to the service writer.

Great write-up BTW!!!

 

I am replacing my front u-joints and I have alot of sand and mud in the axle tubes that I would like to clean out before I slide the axle back through the muddy axle tube. I don't want to ruin or pull the inner axle seals as it does not appear to be leaking and it would require to pull the carrier.

 

I just purchased some inner seals due to leaks. The first thing that I said to myself when I looked at them was "what the f%*$". There is no way these things can last very long if you are going through mud, water, sand, and doing some rock crawling at the same time. Check your diff fluid.

 

I'm in the process of doing this on a donor axel and I can see on the exploded view that there is an axel guide. I called the stealership and they claim it is a plastic disc/washer that slides on the shaft. Any clue where this goes or if I even need it? Plastic inside my axel sounds sketchy.

 

It is just a plastic ring that helps keep the axle shaft at the right height when re-installing it. After that, it has no function.

 

Thanks. I was really questioning Mopar on this one.

 

I'm about to dive into this seal replacement job and have a stupid question. After removing the calipers and the 3 1/2 12 point retaining bolts can I slide the axel out all the way or at least out far enought to replace the seals? Do I want to wash out the axel tubes while in there? Do I need to remove the large nut on the end of the axel?

Thanks.

 

You will need to take off the axle nut. Basically remove the caliper, remove the axle nut, use a BMFH to loosen the rotor, remove rotor & pull the shaft straight out of the hub. A clean out is always a good idea. I have heard that you can just pull the shaft out a little but it's no big deal to just pull it the rest of the way out. Everything sounds much scarier than it actually is.

 

Yes you can slide the axle out, you'll need a small allen wrench to unhook your abs lines, No you don't need to remove the large axle nut to remove the shaft. Just the 12pt's, Your shaft will slide out with unit bearing/hub still together. If you wash it out, get a hand pump of some sort and spray diesel in from the pumkin out.