after the guy at 4wp busted off a lug stud and took apart my front hub, it dumped a bunch of gear oil out of the knuckle. kinda figured it would happen. anyhow, since i don't have the money for a total rebuild, could i just pull out my birfields and inners and put in new seals? i'm just trying to keep that gear oil out of there, i'll do a full rebuild when i get new gears in the (hopefully) near future

is this possible?

 

Yes. Use a thin coat of RTV where the paper gaskets are on the spindle and you'll be fine. You also should seperate the birfs so you can properly clean them out and repack, so also pick up a couple of the little wire snap rings that hold them together. If the seal went because of wear on the brass bushing in the spindle it'll likely fail again soon though.

 

Once you pull the inner axles the inner seal will be right there. Problem is, it's kinda deep inside the axle tube and can be quite difficult to remove. I usually use a slide-hammer but you could sacrifice a screwdriver by bending it 90° at the appropriate location.

 

Or just get one of these