I put a new axle seal on the inside of the rear hub and drove it in until it seated with a small block of wood and all looked good. But I've got a brake drum that drips gear oil after a drive. I looked at the brake shoes and they're of course very oily and not working.

Could it be a bad seal? What else is there to go wrong? Seems like a simple operation.

 

The surface the seal sits on could be worn. Did you check it and use some emery cloth or something like it on it?

 

Where did you get the new seal? Brian (91dually) said he bought his at a parts store, put them in and they leaked. He went to ford and got them and replaced them again and all is good with those.

 

These were from NAPA. I didn't see anything rough on the mating surfaces.
Maybe I need the Ford part.

 

I have had that happen on a 10.25 sterling rear end, what I found was on the double lip seal the lip that was away from the oil side was so long that it would fold in to the seal lip and make a track for the oil to run through. I was using national oil seals, this truck came back 3 times before I figured out what was happening.

 

Check your vent also.

I just changed seals last week and when I blew back thru the vent hose it was blocked.

I used Timkin seals. I also cleaned and polished the heck out of my spindles to get everything as smooth as possible.

I hope they hold. sterling rear end.

Joe W.

 

Looks like a darn wasp (mud dauber) plugged the air vent tube on the differential/axle.

Bummer because now there's trash inside the the axle and maybe wear. I refilled the diff (which was drained to about the level of the axle) and took loose the axle and let it drain and what I caught I filtered through an 80 mesh filter and past a magnet and there's a small amount of fine metal in the gear oil.

 

These axles have problem with seals

Ford has a $140 seal
This one requires a special tool to install the wear sleeve before the seal
Also, it takes a thinner bearing

and then there is the ScotSeal # 34384
the wear sleeve must be removed BEFORE this seal is installed

Both seem to fix the leak

 

I took a garden sprayer and pumped about 1.5 Gallons of Diesel through the offending axle and out the diff (cover off) about 10 times and was getting all kinds of trash in my catch pan that looked like pieces brake dust (non magnetic) even after 10 times. There's less of it in there but man did this turn into a big job all because of a wasp plugging the vent tube. The other axle looked ok for grime.

One thing that gets me though is that the axle seal lives in a very dirty environment (the brake drum). I don't know how these don't leak. I have just a single lip seal (not sure if that's how these are supposed to be) and I don't see how with all of that brake dust, it doesn't eventually break the seal.

 

And right there is your problem

 

It's been a while but I'm sure I compared the seal I removed to the new and I could almost say for certain that they looked similar. The seal that was there when I bought the van looked as if it'd been there for quite a while and to my knowledge it wasn't leaking when I got it.

 

And like I said earlier. These axle have problems sealing so they came out with the wear sleeve style(ford) and the Scotseal(aftermarket) to fix the problem

 

Hey Nick. Been there, done that, and got the T-Shirt. Read this thread I posted back in 2010. Had the exact same problem and drove myselft crazy trying to fix the leak. This should fix your problem!

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/971194-lessons-learned-rear-hub-seals-wheel-bearings.html#post9071995

 

Cleaned the vent tube (plugged solid) and so far it seems to be ok!! Very happy about this! No seal change yet (with the existing NAPA seals). So it looks as if the plugged vent was the problem. This is in a E350 (Dana 60) but I believe the hub/spindle seal is the same as on other rear ends.

 

I love the easy solutions. Glad to hear.