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Pinion seal leak?

3K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  Frogy 
#1 ·
I believe my rig has a pinion seal leak. But let me start at the begining. Yesterday morning I was driving through a parking lot and the TJ felt like it was going to stall out. I have a 50m roundtrip commute to work daily and theres never been this issue. Has she been kind of slow w/ no pickup? Yes, but really who can speed in a jeep...Does the heat suck? Yeah (i need to flush her out but thanks to Hurricane Sandy 80% of my tools etc are stored away while I renovate my house.

Anyway, I got home and parked her and started to do some simple mods. I crawled underneath to take off my step and noticed fluid leaking from the pinion down to the rear diff. Its not dripping, but its enough to coat your finger tips. I should have taken a pic, but IDK how to post them on here anyway :banghead: Sunday, Im going to clean it all up and see exactly where its coming from. How long can I drive on it before I have to get it fixed? Can that and the 'almost stalling' have corilation? Im going to take it and have it looked at early in the week.

Any input is welcome. Throw questions/comments at me.
 
#2 ·
If you have an impact wrench and a ratchet set you can change that seal in about an hour. And yes that is definitely where it's coming from. You're not going to do any damage to it by riding around. But to be safe pull the plug and check the oil in the diff. Hope you get it fixed with no problem!
 
#3 ·
HuckWeb said:
I believe my rig has a pinion seal leak. But let me start at the begining. Yesterday morning I was driving through a parking lot and the TJ felt like it was going to stall out. I have a 50m roundtrip commute to work daily and theres never been this issue. Has she been kind of slow w/ no pickup? Yes, but really who can speed in a jeep...Does the heat suck? Yeah (i need to flush her out but thanks to Hurricane Sandy 80% of my tools etc are stored away while I renovate my house.

Anyway, I got home and parked her and started to do some simple mods. I crawled underneath to take off my step and noticed fluid leaking from the pinion down to the rear diff. Its not dripping, but its enough to coat your finger tips. I should have taken a pic, but IDK how to post them on here anyway :banghead: Sunday, Im going to clean it all up and see exactly where its coming from. How long can I drive on it before I have to get it fixed? Can that and the 'almost stalling' have corilation? Im going to take it and have it looked at early in the week.

Any input is welcome. Throw questions/comments at me.
I dont think soo it has any thing to do with the stalling though. If shes been feeling slow check your plugs, intake and etc. as for the pinion leak am sorry i cant be any help, i know its soemthing not that hard to do but i dodnt have any hand on experience yet with it.
 
#6 ·
HuckWeb said:
I would have no problem doing that but the flood ate me compressor so all my air tools are out of commission. Im going to change out the plugs and everything this weekend.
If iam not mistaken you can torque down the pinion bolt around 150ft/lbs, but let someone confirm, that way you dont need the impact wrench.
 
#7 ·
I'm not a TJ guy but I happened to notice this thread in the forum, generally pinion leaks look worse than they are, as long as fluid levels are kept at normal levels everything is fine. I have a WJ with a leaky front pinion seal and I have the seal but I have not found a way that makes me happy to replace the seal without potential problems. I'm not sure about TJ's but almost every other jeep product seems to be using a crush sleeve for pinion position, that means that impact wrenches and straight torques are pretty much out of the question. I would make sure before you tear it apart that you are sure what the configuration is, and how to compensate for a crush sleeve if you have one. That being said if you find a good proceedure (if you have the crush sleeve), let me know!

Frogy
 
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