So I was taking off my side steps on my JK today and saw this


Front Diff BTW.

I did some offroading last weekend along with some water crossings. This is my first 4x4 so i decided to see what you guys think. It looks like somethings leaking...

 

your concern is well founded. looks like differential fluid is escaping pinion leak .

 

When I had my lift installed they noticed that the pinion seal was damaged and had to have one ordered in. Maybe this is the same with you????

 

Darn, alrighty looks like im off to the dealer , thanks for validating my Suspicion's.

 

I agree with the pinion seal appearing to be the problem. On the positive side, I didn't realize that there was a drain plug on the Dana 30 until I saw your picture. I knew the 44 had one, but did not know about the 30. This is good news for me. Sorry about your leak though.

 

LOL glad I helped ya out Renegade, went down to the dealer today they ordered me a new pinion seal and told be its covered under warranty and told me it would still be alright to use 4wd in the meantime.

 

So it was the pinion seal! When I looked at mine, it looked like the factory kinda just threw everything together. Did they show you the seal?

 

You can see the seal in his picture. It is metal on the outside and is just smaller in diameter than the pinion housing; where the pinion yoke is. There is a rubber seal with a spring on it that is molded onto the metal part of the seal. The seal is just driven into place, but it's not too hard to knock the spring off, which may be what happened when it was installed.

 

Yea they mentioned that they have had a couple of JKs in early this week that had the same problem...