Oily Wheels or Steering Knuckles Axle Seal Leaks on Jeep Wrangler JK 2007-18

Let's see what's going on right here. Oh, axle seal leak. Great.

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. So, today, we're going to be doing an axle seal on a Jeep JK series. The front differential axle seal isn't going to be located in the outer area where I can see that I have a leak, it's actually going to be located closer to the differential pumpkin. There's going to be a little bit of work involved, so let's get into it. One of the first things I want to mention to you is, of course, we're going to be dealing with fluids, so we want to make sure we have hand and eye protection. It's going to be super important. The next thing I like to do is make sure I have a nice collection bucket, we're going to open up the fill plug on our differential cover. Go ahead and set that aside. Now, the next thing we're going to do is we're going to remove our drain plug which is located on the bottom driver side of your differential. When I do that, I like to have a nice clean cup so I can catch the first bit that's coming out. I want to make sure that there's no contaminants inside the differential.

Let's let that drain out. So, now let's look inside that oil and just kind of swirl it around. We want to see if there's any metal deposits inside there. You can also look from the bottom and see if you see any large chunks. We also want to take a look at this drain plug though. You're going to notice that it has a magnet on it and typically, it accumulates some debris on it. This small debris that you see on this is actually perfectly natural and it's bound to happen. If you see any large chunks of metal or shards of metal, that's bad news, and it means that you have an issue with one of your gears. Now, the next thing we want to do is safely raise and support the front of our Jeep so that we can remove our front wheel.

Now that we have the wheel off of there, we have a nice clear view of what's going on. Essentially, what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to get the brakes off of here, and then remove the wheel bearing with the axle and pull it right out. The wheel bearing as you're going to notice has an ABS wire on it. You want to make sure that you don't damage that in any way. So, of course, we're going to want to disconnect it and then remove it from all of the securing points first. So, if you follow your ABS wire, you're going to see it comes up behind your shock tower, that's little push pins from the other side. We're going to go ahead and pop that apart and then separate it and then start disconnecting it. Now, to make it easier to reach and be able to disconnect behind here, we're just going to go ahead and remove it from its securing points along the way. So, now let's go ahead and lift this up and pull our ABS wire a little bit.

If you look at the connector, you're going to see that there's a locking point. You want to go ahead and press on that red button and just unlock it. Once it's unlocked, if you press in the center area right here, you'll be able to squeeze it and then separate the two. There we are. That's separated. Let's go ahead and pull this out of here. You want to make sure that you put your ABS wire in an area where it's definitely not going to get pinched or damaged in any way. Now, the next thing we want to do is remove our caliper with the bracket. And when we do that, we're going to go ahead and set it aside so it's putting no pressure on our flex hose.

Let's remove the rotor. Now, looking from the backside of your knuckle, you're going to see that you have three wheel bearing mounting bolts. One here- up top, and then on the other side. You're going to also notice that those are 12-point and it's a 13-millimeter. Let's go ahead and tap our socket on there. There we are. Let's do the same to the rest. So, now that we have all of our bolts out, I'm just going to go ahead and start in one of my bolts so it's in a few good threads and then I'm going to have my socket on here. After that, I need to continue on with my hammer. And I'm just going to try to give this a couple of loving bonks to break the wheel bearing free from the knuckle. You're going to want to make sure you use an old socket, something that you're not necessarily worried about damaging. So, now I've got it so the plate can move around, that's telling me that the wheel bearing is breaking free from the knuckle. If you wanted to, you can continue on to doing it with the rest of the bolts as well. I'm just gonna use a little bit more penetrant on here and we'll continue.

All right. We'll get that to break free. Let's carefully pull out our axle with the wheel bearing. Now, you're going to want to look inside that differential tube and make sure if you have these, they're not lodged inside there. These should essentially go over your axle, just like this. And essentially, they're going to be like shims, so when you put this back in, there isn't going to be any movement from your axle. Now, that that's out of there, let's do the same to the other side of the Jeep.

Now that we have both axles free and clear and the differential drained, let's continue on by removing all of our bolts to remove the differential pan. For this top bolt, I'm going to remove it most of the way, but leave it in a few threads. Now, typically these pans are going to be held on by some RTV or gasket maker. That's going to mean that this is going to be stuck to the actual differential itself. Just go ahead and use a scraper or whatever you can get in between and go ahead and pry it apart. Just be careful not to damage your pan because if you flex it or bend it, it could potentially be an issue where you can't seal it again. With that separated, go ahead and remove your last bolt and get the pan out of the way. All right. So, now the diff pan is out of the way. So we have a nice clear view of what's going on inside. You're going to notice that you have this area right here. This is where your bearing caps is. There's going to be four bolts that we need to remove, but you, first of all, before you go ahead and remove them, you want to pay attention to which side each of them is on.

So, take a picture with your cell phone, a camera, or even just write it down. You could also mark these if you needed to, but essentially what you need to do is make sure whichever you took off of each side goes back the same side that you removed it from. So, now that we remember exactly where these are going to go back to when I remove them, I want to go ahead and set them on their corresponding sides. That's going to make things much easier. As we start to remove this from here, you want to be very careful because there could potentially be some shims. And, of course, there's going to be bearings inside there that are going to have races on them. The races that are going to be removed that come out with it, need to go with the corresponding bearings. So, don't mix it up. It's also a good idea to make sure that you have these facing in the same direction. So, if the wads are facing this way, that's the way that they're going to go back on when you put these back together.

Now, once these are off, you want to make sure that you're holding onto this because we don't want this to come falling out of the differential. So, now that we have all that off of there, we want to just quickly pay attention. This area right here is going to be where the race is. And that's also going to be where your bearing goes inside of. Along the side of it, like I said, you might find that there's going to be some shims. You want to make sure that you don't lose any of those. There's going to be probably some on either side. At this point, I'm going to continue on with a pry bar and I'm going to carefully come in between one of the bolts on this gear and then up against the differential. I want to be very careful not to damage anything. There we are. Let's grab onto this and let's get this right out of the way. And with this down on the ground, we can carefully inspect our races. Make sure you don't see any scouring or discoloring. And, of course, the bearings themselves as well.

If it looks as though anything's worn or damaged, now it's perfect time to go out and replace it. Inside the differential, let's go ahead and grab onto those shims. Make sure you pay attention to which side they came from and put them back in the exact same way. Now, we have a nice clear view of our inner axle seals. Now, the next thing we need to do is grab a nice long pry bar or whatever you might happen to have and a hammer. I'm going to come in through this differential tube and up against the inside of that seal. I'm going essentially try to push this out and into the differential. There it is, friends. Now, typically when I do this, I'm going to do both sides. So, I'm going to come from the other side and do the exact same thing. So, now this is going to be the boring part, but I'm just going to quickly explain it to you. We need to essentially clean all this down, especially along this area right here which is where our new seal is gonna ride. You want to make sure you have any debris free and clear from that and, of course, any oils off there as well.

I also typically like to clean out the inside of the differential, but I don't necessarily try to get inside behind here because, of course, there is going to be a bearing back there as well. Also while I'm cleaning, usually I try to come through from this side and push out and I'll try to get out any debris that might be inside of this tube. So, now that we did a pretty good job cleaning up the inside, let's continue on by cleaning up the mating surface of the differential where the pan cover is gonna sit on. So, I got this all nice and cleaned up now, the inside looks pretty good as well. But something that I want to mention real quick is down in here, there's a little bit of a puddle. You want to make sure that you get all that out of there, and you also want to make sure that there's no debris that's remaining inside there. Anything that's in there could potentially damage your differential overall. Now that that's done, let's continue on to cleaning our internals. Now with our gear assembly inside the bucket, we're going to continue on cleaning this down. You want to make sure that you remove these races and you also want to clean them and then set them on their corresponding sides so you don't mix them up. It needs to go back where the original bearing it came from.

Let's make sure we clean this stuff up as well. And, of course, make sure it's not damaged in any way. Now, let's move along to our axles. The main areas that we're going to want to clean on those would be, of course, the splines. Make sure you get out any gunk or debris inside there. And then right up along this area where it's supposed to be smooth, make sure you don't see any raised areas or ridges. If you see any scouring or raised areas, make sure you clean it up the best you can. The main reason why the seals tend to leak is typically because dirt and debris makes its way down your differential tube and makes its way to where the seal is supposed to ride on this nice smooth area. So, any debris that's on here is going to potentially damage your seal. Of course, you also want to make sure you clean up your shims. If you were going to be replacing this dust cover right here and putting on a nice external axle seal, you would want to, of course, take this off of here and then clean up this entire area so you can make sure the seal has a smooth area to ride as well.

So, now taking a look at the seal, you can see by looking inside here, there's a little spring that goes around the entire surface on the inside. You want to make sure that does not fall off when you're installing the seal. So, I just use a little bit of petroleum jelly, and I'm going to make a nice ring around it. That's going to help it sit in there. And I would just do this to both seals, obviously. With everything cleaned up and the seal all ready to go, we're going to continue on by installing the seal into the differential. To do this, you're going to have a couple of different options, but essentially all you need to do is press it in. If you just go ahead and put it upright like this, you could continue on with a socket that's going to fit along this outer edge right here, and then drive it in so it's pressed into the tube. Of course, if you had the socket, you might need to use a nice long extension to come all the way through from the other end of the tube and then come down here so you can drive it in.

Otherwise, if you happen to have a caliper depressing tool or even a seal installing tool, you could try to get an in-between here and then just kind of separate it, and then that's going to drive in the seal. I would do those one at a time. Typically, when I do these, I try to put in the driver side first, and then I do the passenger side second. Just do a quick inspection, make sure it's seated properly. And then do the same to the other side. Now, the next thing I want to talk to you is the differential cover. Obviously, you want to look at the backside and you want to make sure that the mating area that's going to go up against the differential is nice and clean and free of any debris. Secondly, what I want to talk to you about is the overall shape of the differential cover. You're going to notice that this one right here is pretty much an oval with flat sides. That's telling me that this is called a Dana 30. There's also a different type of differential cover that you might happen to see which looks a little bit like an oval with flat sides, but it's going to kind of have some weird angles to it. And it looks a little wonky. That one's going to be a Dana 44 and the two are going to have different torque specifications. So, make sure you look up your specific application.

Now, the next thing we want to do is pre-lubricate the bearing that's behind this gear here. So, just go ahead and use your manufacturer-specified fluid and give it a nice little squirt. Now, the next thing we're going to do is pre-lubricate our gearing system. You need to definitely make sure that you put lubricant on all of your bearings so you have one on each side here. Make sure you get a whole bunch of lubricant inside there. And then inside all these gears here. Just make sure that they have a good amount of lube. Of course, once we get everything together and the differential's full, it's going to make sure that everything's lubricated, but I just like to have it pre-lubricated. Now, the next thing we're going to do is take our races and go ahead and put them on our corresponding bearings. And then, of course, we're going to take our shims and put those with it as well. Let's do that to both sides. And then we'll continue on to putting this into the differential.

There we are. Now, while we're holding that, let's go ahead and start in our bearing caps. Once again, you want to make sure that you have these on the corresponding sides and facing in the proper direction. Now it's going to be time to torque our bearing caps. If you have the Dana 30, like I have, I'm going to be talking this to 45 foot-pounds. If you have the Dana 44, you're going to torque them to 80 foot-pounds. Now, the next thing we need to do is get a gasket ready for our pan. If you didn't buy a gasket, you can use a little bit of gasket maker. And, of course, we're just going to make a nice thin coat of it coming around the entire outside of the pan here. Once it's coated, we'll continue on by putting it onto the differential. Now, the next thing we want to do is clean up our differential pan bolts. Make sure you get off all that RTV/gasket maker. Before we put the pan on, let's just make sure we get off any gear oil that might've made its way onto the mating surface. Line your pan up with your bolt holes, and then start in your bolts.

Once they're all started, go ahead and snug them up. Now, we're going to torque these pan bolts to 35 foot-pounds. Now that the pan bolts are torqued, let's let the gasket maker dry and put it on the rest of our front end. Before we go ahead and install the rest of our front end, let's make sure we clean up all of our bolts. And, of course, let's clean up the mating surface on our knuckle and the wheel bearing in the backing plate. Now, it's gonna be time to get the axle back in here. Make sure that you have your shims on the axle and ready to go. I'm going to start sliding this. Now let's go ahead and put in our mounting bolts for the wheel bearing. We'll snug these up and then we'll torque them to manufacturer specification. Now, let's torque these to 75 foot-pounds. Now let's take care of our ABS wire. So, you have your mounting point. Come up along the backside. And this is going to continue along over this way and then come up on here. All right. So, now let's just connect in that ABS wire. Make sure you lock in the red tab again. And then we're going to resecure it back into the point where it's right behind shock tower.

There we are. At this point, we can come down here, get this back on there. Now, the next thing we're going to want to do is clean up the mating surface on your hub and the backside of your rotor. Once it's clean enough, go ahead and reinstall your rotor, take one of your lug nuts, start it on there so holds the rotor for you. Now it's going to be time to get our caliper back on. After you get it slid on, go ahead and reinstall your bolts. I like to use a little bit of red thread locker. Now, we're going to snug up the bolts and then torque them to 100 foot-pounds. Now, let's finish securing your ABS wire. Now, let's get our wheel back on here. We'll snug up all of our lug nuts and then we'll do the same to the other side. Let's go ahead and put in our drain plug. Snug that up. That's bottom out., teeny bit bit more. That feels great. Now it's going to be time to fill the differential. You want to use 80W-90 gear oil. And when we fill it, we just want to go until it just barely starts coming out of the fill hole. Now, let's go ahead and put in our fill plug. Snug that up as well. There we are. All right, friends, with the wheel safely on the ground, let's go ahead and torque these lug nuts to 122 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Okay, friends, so we fixed that axle leak. You saw that we did the axle seals and when I do them, I do them as a pair. We had the whole front differential torn apart, so why not? Overall, it was a fairly easy job, just a little bit labor-intensive. I hope you learned a little something along the way. If you did and you want to talk about it, leave it in the comment section below because I always love to hear from you. If you liked the video, smash on the like button for me, it'll mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe and ring the bell that way there you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.