fridayman
Well-Known Member
I put the axle back last weekend and thought I would post up a few tips/comments for anyone else who has this oil leak.
There are 3 seals:
An inner seal - to keep diff oil off the bearing,
An o-ring to keep water/dust out of the axle housing
And a outer seal that keeps water & dust out of the hub / away from the bearing
I replaced all 3, but if money was tight I would do the inner and o-ring (because it is cheap) first and see if the leak stopped, before spending the extra cash to do the outer seal (which made it much more expensive).
After pulling my drive shaft out, I was fairly sure that the outer seal had gone, but actually it was both the inner and outer that had failed. I ordered up all the parts from Roughtrax after Toyota quoted me £12 just for the o-ring (Roughtrax is £1). What turned up from Roughtrax was a genuine Toyo bearing (£20), and a pattern inner seal (£3), outer seal (£5), bearing retaining collar (£11) and the o-ring - it later turned out both the outer seal and the o-ring were the wrong ones.
The larger o-ring is from Roughtrax, the smaller is the original:
The seal in the packet is the Toyota seal and the other (smaller) one is from Roughtrax:
To get the shaft out is fairly simple - I just figured it out as I went along. Once the shaft is out it was fairly obvious that there is no way on earth that I would be able to remove and refit the 2 collars and the bearing myself. At this point I realised the Roughtrax info on the retaining collar was wrong and that there is another collar that they don't do, and decided to order the following from Toyoto (I realised the size of the job, and don't plan to do this job again if I don't have to): inner seal, outer seal, inner and outer retaining collars (the old ones need to be cut off) - this lot was about £90. At this point I didn't know the o-ring was the wrong size yet... so I ended up having to re-use the old one again.
When I took the shaft to Toyo to get the work done, they were very straight with me and said that they don't even do this type of job themselves - they sub-contract it out. The guy was happy to give me the details so that I could go to the shop directly, rather than pay Toyo a premium. When I rang the shop up they quoted £260 + VAT just for the labour - imagine what Toyota would have charged for the job! I then rang a transmission shop nearby and they quoted me £50/hour and reckoned on an hour - in the end it they charged me for 2 hours (although it took a bit longer), and were happy to show me how they did it and that I was correct to have changed the outer seal too (there was oil on the outside of the outer seal).
Getting the inner seal out is not that difficult. I "cut" some grooves into it with a hammer and screw driver (careful not to mark the casing) to allow it to collapse inwards and then pulled it out with a large pair of pliers.
Getting the new inner seal in had me thinking for a bit. Because the seal is such a tight fit it has to be driven in absolutely straight (the abs magnet doesn't help....). My largest socket is nowhere near big enough. Turns out paint spray cans are about the right size, but not designed to be hit by hammers... So I cut a wooden block to the right size which worked perfectly.
Then it was just a case of putting it all back together again, with the most difficult part being the handbrake re-assembly (remembering what went where and then getting all the springs hooked in).
There are 3 seals:
An inner seal - to keep diff oil off the bearing,
An o-ring to keep water/dust out of the axle housing
And a outer seal that keeps water & dust out of the hub / away from the bearing
I replaced all 3, but if money was tight I would do the inner and o-ring (because it is cheap) first and see if the leak stopped, before spending the extra cash to do the outer seal (which made it much more expensive).
After pulling my drive shaft out, I was fairly sure that the outer seal had gone, but actually it was both the inner and outer that had failed. I ordered up all the parts from Roughtrax after Toyota quoted me £12 just for the o-ring (Roughtrax is £1). What turned up from Roughtrax was a genuine Toyo bearing (£20), and a pattern inner seal (£3), outer seal (£5), bearing retaining collar (£11) and the o-ring - it later turned out both the outer seal and the o-ring were the wrong ones.
The larger o-ring is from Roughtrax, the smaller is the original:
The seal in the packet is the Toyota seal and the other (smaller) one is from Roughtrax:
To get the shaft out is fairly simple - I just figured it out as I went along. Once the shaft is out it was fairly obvious that there is no way on earth that I would be able to remove and refit the 2 collars and the bearing myself. At this point I realised the Roughtrax info on the retaining collar was wrong and that there is another collar that they don't do, and decided to order the following from Toyoto (I realised the size of the job, and don't plan to do this job again if I don't have to): inner seal, outer seal, inner and outer retaining collars (the old ones need to be cut off) - this lot was about £90. At this point I didn't know the o-ring was the wrong size yet... so I ended up having to re-use the old one again.
When I took the shaft to Toyo to get the work done, they were very straight with me and said that they don't even do this type of job themselves - they sub-contract it out. The guy was happy to give me the details so that I could go to the shop directly, rather than pay Toyo a premium. When I rang the shop up they quoted £260 + VAT just for the labour - imagine what Toyota would have charged for the job! I then rang a transmission shop nearby and they quoted me £50/hour and reckoned on an hour - in the end it they charged me for 2 hours (although it took a bit longer), and were happy to show me how they did it and that I was correct to have changed the outer seal too (there was oil on the outside of the outer seal).
Getting the inner seal out is not that difficult. I "cut" some grooves into it with a hammer and screw driver (careful not to mark the casing) to allow it to collapse inwards and then pulled it out with a large pair of pliers.
Getting the new inner seal in had me thinking for a bit. Because the seal is such a tight fit it has to be driven in absolutely straight (the abs magnet doesn't help....). My largest socket is nowhere near big enough. Turns out paint spray cans are about the right size, but not designed to be hit by hammers... So I cut a wooden block to the right size which worked perfectly.
Then it was just a case of putting it all back together again, with the most difficult part being the handbrake re-assembly (remembering what went where and then getting all the springs hooked in).
