Greetings I just had my 5.13's installed last week and I developed a leak out of the front driver side axle tube at the knuckle. I'm taking it back the shop where I had it done but something perplexed me when I was looking for the cause of the leak.




I don't have any experience with the D44 axle, but shouldn't there be a seal there and not just an open axle tube????? Could one of yall check your axle and let me know? There apears to be a seal on the passenger side of the axle, as in there is something flush with the end of the tube. I smelled grease but I just figured that it was from the break in.

Sorry about the giant pics but I couldn't see the area I was talking about on the smaller versions.

 

The seal for the front axles are just outside the pumkin. They are essentially exposed to the environment right up to where the axles spline into the carrier assembly.



You can see it there to the right just inside the tube

 

Ahh so there isn't an inner and outer seal. Thanks, that's what I needed to know.

 

During the dissasembly the girdle spring around my axle seal popped off. I had to carefully slip it back on.

Good news/bad news.

The bad news is that they're likely gonna have to remove the carrier to fix the seal. The good news is that they're on the hook for it . . . not you.

A bandaid fix would be to seal the tubes at the outer end with the new seals from ORE. Essentially one tube would fill with oil until it reached an equilibrium point and flow back into the pumkin. I wouldn't do it but its worth exploring. I'm sure others here could advise.

 

I just had my Jeep lifted and new gears put in & developed the same exact leak within a week. I thought it was brake fluid at first but everything looked good.

4WD parts fixed it during the post lift inspection - Which is usually a few weeks after the lift - Of course it was no cost to me.

 

I had a 4x4 shop put my gears on in early 2007. ----I went back 3 seperate times to fix axleshaft leaks---
It turns out that while installing the axle shafts the mechanic was knocking off the girdle springs/ damaging the inner diameter of the seal.
The "fix" was to put a light coat of grease on the inner seal to aid the shaft install.

No more leaks

 

Thanks for the replies yall, I'm taking it in Friday for them to fix their "oops". RC where can I get a set of those outer seals, I don't like the idea of only having one seal separating the diff from the elements.

 

Ten Factory, Superior, and ORE make a set. Maybe others but that's all I know of. I Think they're all around $75.

GL