tyndalltoy

The other day I noticed that both of my rear brake drums were leaking fluid. I took off the rear tires, and they were soaked. The brakes felt sponggy(1st clue).The brake cylinders were not leaking so I figured it must be the rear seals. I contacted the previous owner and he said he had them replaced 3 times,once toyota ,once corner mechanic,and once himself. I don't think the axle ends are out of round...not both ends at the same time anyway.Does anyone know the possible cause.It's a 95 4runner.

Lone4runner

have you checked the breather to make sure its not clogged?

tyndalltoy

I'll go out and check it.

tyndalltoy

Yeh, the breather was plugged solid. I cleaned it out , works fine now. Will I have to replace the inner and outer seals or will they still be ok? I know I'll have to replace the rear brakes though.

snap-on

i would think the seals are ok, you were just forcing oil past them, shouldnt have caused physical damage to them.

tyndalltoy

I'll check the diff fluid and keep an eye on it. Thanks

design311

If you do ever need to change the axle seals Chris Geiger did a nice little write up. Scroll half way down this thread...

http://www.trail-gear.com/vbulletin/...ead.php?t=2827

leebee

having had to replace rear brgs due to gear oil being forced past the seals, i would certainly change the brgs. the gear oil will have contaminated the brgs, eventually leading to them failing.

you might want to look into extending your rear diff breather at the same time. check out www.4crawler.com or seach on here.

Targetnut

Once the seals have been leaking, the housings around the bearings will fill with oil and after the leak has been fixed oil will continue to leak onto the brakes untill it all comes out of the housings (which could be several thousand miles). Really the only way to insure this does not happen is to replace the bearings and clean up the oil.

tyndalltoy

Good point gang. I might as well do it all at the same time, save me alot of headaches later. The bearings have to be pressed off if I'm not mistaken anyway. I don't have a press to do it, so I'll have to get someone to do it for me, unless there's a easy way to do it without one. It's my DD, so I don't want to have it down for too long if I run into serious problems.

drew303

I rebuilt my rear axle. bearings seals, axles, brakes, dif etc..everything.

I bought a press and its already paid for itself tri-fold.

Our family mechanic charged $40 an axle to unpress old bearings and press on new (not including the cost of the bearings of course) and i had him do this on my OLD axles.. then i bought new chromolys because BOTH were out of round as you put it. warped is another term.

doing the bearings yourself can be a PITA even with a press because it takes a jig to get the bearings pressed OFF or you can do the shade-tree method (smash the axle on teh ground).

I did the shade-tree and one side slipped off fine.. otherside not so easy. I didnt care about the old axles mushrooming since they were going to the metal cruncher anyway but i destroyed a brake cylinder and smashed up the backing plate pretty good =)

Tho im happy I did it myself as I could prevent the damage next time from what I know now.


Also had a friend who was leaking gear oil into the brake drums. Went and looked at her rig and found both (front and rear) difs had cemented dif breathers. I told her theres your problem. didnt believe me. Shop replaced her seals and told her that was her problem $1100 later... That was with 4 new tires.. so im guessing the fix was around $500.

stealership

$5 tubing and a hose clamp from home depot gave me front and rear dif breathers....

drew303

The Special Service Tool for unpressing toyota rear axle bearings is #:

SST 09521-25011

* this part looks like one half of a toyota rear axle. It's a tube with a flange that bolts to the bearing case. Which surrounds the sealed bearing which is attached to the backing plate *


and for pressing the bearing you'll need:

SST 09515-30010

* This part looks like a socket kind of *

Of course you need a press to make use of either of these SST's.

Im curious to how expensive they are i think ill call the dealer tomorrow and see what the charge is.

You can see the details from the FSM

directly to the axle pages:
http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b...33rearaxle.pdf

index of the online '93 FSM

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-buchanan/93fsm/

also:

The FSM makes use of SST's constantly. Not really practical when we don't have a toyota authorized shop in our backyards! The bearing doesn't actually get pressed into the case. It's not that tight of a fit. Nore is it a rediculous tight fit on the actual AXLE. It only takes slight force to move the bearing in the case. A few taps and it'll budge so you dont NEED the SST's ... infact I don't see why anyone would press it into the case first...

Technically I suppose you could damage the bearing case and the bearing, maybe even the axle by pressing the bearing in not exactly square (or striaght in).. ie, pressing it in at an angle and essentially wedging it in there, damaging the metal. But, you back off, line it up again and start off straight. once its got a good start it wont want to slip in at an angle, it'll slip straight in and you can "feel" the pressure release when your operating a manual hydro press. Then you know its going in how it should.

So the bearing is in the case now.. Now you just press the axle further down while the bearing gets pushed closer to the axle flange...

Two steps in one.

I didn't use SST's to press the bearing back in. I used a fence post flange meant for bolting fence posts to cement floors. Did the same thing as the second SST i listed, not as pretty but was the right diamter and thickness to fit between the case bolts and tall enough to fit the bearing before the studs hit the press plates.

goodluck!