Drivetrain Rear Pinion Seal Leaking Nut Was Loose

stang89bidges

Advanced Member
Mar 14, 2014
727
143
74
Fort Worth Texas
Guys I got my drive shaft off after finding a leaking rear pinion seal(so i thought). When I went to take the nut off it just turned.... No force needed. Could have turned it with my hand most likely.

I took it to dyno shop 1.5 years ago. He noticed it was leaking then. But since I had the car I never saw a leak in the driveway. I put a ton of miles on the car in a year. Highway driving. So I never worried about it. Well I had that car up on ramps working on the front end for about 2 straight weeks. I noticed a tiny puddle starting to appear from the rear end. Jacked it up on stands and here I am.

My question. It only looked like it was leaking from the threads. Everything else was bone dry. Do you think the seal is bad or should I just tighted the nut down and call it a day?
 
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This is from my experience with older cars. While it is that far apart, check where the seal rides for a wear groove, bearing play and replace the seal because it is cheaper now. Use some RTV on the nut going back together.
 
Yeah I went ahead and pulled the seal. I almost tightened her back up(locked cocked and ready to rock)!

Buuuuuuuttt. I went for a new seal. I just hope I can judge the correct tension on the nut so that I don't go over or under on the crush bearing!
 
Is there a feel to the crush bearing and putting the nut back on? Something I should listen for, feel for, or etc?

As I backed it off I marked the wrong thing.... But I did count how many turns I made. But without marking the nut properly I actually counted cranks with the socket wrench. So I counted 50 cranks. I think I got 3 cranks per full rotation. So about 16-17 turns. I hope this logic works...
 
So I put my new seal in. Got the nut on and started to tighten. The amount of revolutions was wrong. The flange was still loose and rocked. So I started to tight further till is stopped rocking. Well. I had to tight the nut all the way until it stopped(as in it was a pretty easy loose turning with the wrench and then all of a sudden it stopped turning). At that point the flange was tight enough it stopped rocking and seemed to be solid again.

Did I go too far with the nut or did I get it right? I didn't tug on it real hard. Just snugged it with the socket wrench a little.