After reading all of the posts about changing the front differential seals, I was concerned about just "hammering in" the seals, and there was no way in hell I was gonna spend $150 for the installation tool, so I took it all apart Thursday night, and figured that I'd sleep on it and start fresh in the morning, and hopefully I'll come up with a genius plan in my sleep. So put everyone's suggestions together in my head, and woke up with a master plan.
One of the suggestions for removing the seals was to put a big socket on the end of a string of extensions and tap them out. This worked awesomely. Oh yeah, let me back up for a second. Putting the ring gear in the freezer overnight was a genius idea. It went back in easier than it came out. So I also put the seals in the freezer overnight too. I think that helped a bit. So, back to the installation "tool" I came up with. I went to my local home center and bought a 4' piece of 1" galvanized pipe. $16, a 1" pipe cap, $2, and a 1" to 1-1/2" adapter, $3. $21.00 total, WAAAY better than $150. I put the cap on one end of the pipe so I could wit it with a hammer. The 1" pipe fits into the diff, as well as it passes through the seal too. I slid the pipe into the diff and then inside the case I screwed on the adapter. The 1-1/2" side is almost the exact size of the seal. I put a towel under the pipe where it passed through the hub to keep it going in straight. Then I held it against the seal while I had the wife tap it in. But be careful. The seal doesn't have a seat to stop it, so we over drove it and had to knock it out the end and do it over again. No big deal though. Then I remover the adapter, pulled the pipe and did it again on the other side. Had them installed in under 10 minutes, and the best part is, since I put the cap on the hammered end of the pipe, I didn't jack the pipe up, so now I can return all of it on my next trip up. Total installation tool cost??? Gas money. (priceless)