Well I had a bad shock when I walked to my truck this afternoon.
There was a large puddle of oil under my axle the leak seems to be coming from the pinion and yoke and its dripping out at a good rate..
I've never worked on a diff before other then adding oil..
Could this just be a simple seal? or is it some thing much worse??
If it is just a seal is that a pretty easy fix? or will I have to drop the third and all the fun stuff?

 

Could be just a badly leaking pinion seal, but for a rear to be leaking that much while parked, I'd suspect you have some bad pinion bearings along with a very deteriorated seal. Replacement of the seal is straitforward -but you need some tools to looseb the pinion nut & pull off the companion flange. Then you can pry out the old seal & hammer in the new one [carefully!]. Just remember to measure the pinion rotating torque before loosening the nut so that you can duplicate this [torque] reading upon reassembly....

 

Wow. I have no idea what you just said about measuring the pinion rotating torque before loosening the nut so that you can duplicate this [torque] reading upon reassembly. Way over my head man. But thank you very much so to make a long story short I have no idea how to fix this thing and I don't have the money to take it any where seems like every thing happens all at once.. Thanks man I guess its just gonna have to wait.

 

Well, Nomad...you could change the pinion seal as a stop-gap measure anyway, even if your pinion bearings are on their way out. The only "special" tool you need to measure the rotational torque is an inch-lb torque wrench (preferably an old-style beam-type). Before you take anything apart on the differential, take the wheels and brake drums off. Then take your torque wrench, put it on the pinion nut, and observe how much torque it takes to turn it. That value will be the number you're aiming for when you're putting the pinion nut back on. In other words, you'll want to tighten the pinion nut to, say, 130 ft-lbs. Then take your inch-lb torque wrench and rotate the pinion...if the amount of torque it takes is lower than your original pre-disassembly figure, tighten the pinion nut some more. Recheck the rotational torque number, and keep repeating these steps until you get the original value without going over. That's why I suggested starting low on the pinion nut torque value...if you overtighten the nut, you'll be crushing the crush collar on the pinion shaft more than it was originally, and you can't back it off "a little bit". You'll be pulling your diff to put a new crush collar in if you overtighten.

Sorry about my explanation...this procedure is actually 100x easier than I've described it.

Good luck...
Pat

 

Oh! I have one of those but it only goes to 6"lbs and never used it on any thing..
I'm sorry Zoom and every one else =) I can't help the fact that I'm thick headed hehe.. But I see what both of you are saying now and it dose not sound hard at all. Thank you all very much.. Should I go around and replace every thing like bearings and seals or just whats leaking?
Oh and another thing the inchlb wrench I have is really little do they make a adapter that will fit over that big ol nut?

 

Not so much an "adapter" for the nut but rather for the socket drive: your in-lb torque wrench is likely 1/4" drive, while the socket that fits the pinion nut maybe 1/2 or 3/4" drive. Good ol Sears sells 1/4 to 3/8 & 3/8 to 1/2 & 1/2 to 3/4 drive adapters. Have at it & good luck!

 

Awesome thanks guys =)