My rear speed sensors look like they are covered with gritty black greasy oil. Anybody know why? Should they be dry? It looks like the rear sensors do not have oring seals.

 

They should be dry. My guess is that you've got a rear axle seal leaking (or had at one point in time). Best to pull the rotor and take a look inside to see what's happening. You can sometimes get a good idea if you've got leaking seals by looking at the backing plate to see if it's oily towards the bottom.

 

Mine looked like that once. Karl hit it on the money, I had a bad seal and oil was all over behind the rotor.

 

def a bad seal if it looks like that. You may have to address that to solve the wheel speed sensor issue or plan on cleaning it often.

 

I watched a video on pulling the axle out to replace the seal. It looks like that can be a bear of a job. I'll pull the rotor off in the morning. I been working on the jeep all day. Just went out to work on it again and I knocked over a 3 gallon container of used black motor oil on my garage floor, so I feel like it's a good time to quit for the night.

 

Pulling the axle isn't bad. Once you get it out then you cut through the bearing cage and remove that, then cut through what's left of the bearing and remove that. Move over to the "wedding band"- drill a hole down to the shaft then use a cut off wheel and grind down. You'll get so far before you hear the springy sound of a crack- just slide it off from there. Then you'll pull that seal and install your new one. Press new wedding band on, press the new bearing on, reinstall. The job is tougher without a shop press, I've used the HF 20 ton with good success and you can find them on sale for $165 if you get the right coupon.

Here's the catch- you'll want to inspect to see that the shaft is still running true. I had a leak and was pricing parts. While pricing, my friends and I went wheeling and you could see the shaft wobble (from their perspective) going down the highway. The ride was "fine", but no amount of new seals would fix that so I ended up with replacement shafts. Since I'm on 35's and bent the previous one, I went with lifetime warranty shafts that came pre-assembled to the point where I could slide the old ones out (race from the axle too) and slide the new ones in.

 

If I had a leaking seal,and I don't have a press, would I be better off buying a ready to to install, loaded axle? I wouldn't need anything better than stock.

 

In your shoes, I'd probably look for a local shop that would press the seals on for you. For comparison sake, I believe the dealer was at/ around $500 to replace the leaking seal. Parts are cheap, it's just the labor of removing the old and pressing on the new.

Factory shafts are pretty pricey IMO and that's sosort of what drove me towards the aftermarket options (as well as having bent the factory flange), but again- my use is a little different than what you're looking at.

 

Normally there are just a couple options for shafts with pre-installed seals/bearings, and they are usually chromoly. NorthRidge has a set they sell plug and play ready, but you still have to deal with that old race in the axle tube. Do you have a machine shop close by? They probably wouldn't charge much to press on the new bits, though I've never inquired. And agree with Karl above....pulling the axle isn't near as bad as removing the old bearings and race. I'm much prefer to deal with the front seals. You likely will need to "borrow" a slide hammer from auto store to get that axle out too. They are often in there pretty stubborn. You can try the old brake rotor trick as a pseudo slidehammer. Sometimes that works, sometimes not.

 

I took the left side rotor off. Didn't actually look too bad in there. Put everything back together and took a test drive. Fine for about 5 miles, then abs and traction light came on again. Now the code is C102A. The connector was a bit flaky. I'm now going to head over to advanced auto and buy a new connector. The wire near the connector looks like it was repaired at one point. The red plastic thing broke when I slid that out. So I'll replace the connector then report back.