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Rear pinion seal replacement, Dana 44a

6K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  86cj74.2L 
#1 ·
Questions about rear pinion seal replacement, Dana 44a

I had my WJ safety inspected yesterday, only a few things failed. The rear upper control arm bushings, rear sway bar links and a leaky rear axle pinion seal. The first items are simple for me to fix. I'm not afraid to tackle the pinion seal, I have set up gears in the past. I just have no experience with the 44a and I can't seem to find anything on the webz about them, only the "regular" Dana 44's.

Can anyone offer up a link that shows an exploded diagram? I've come up empty handed after a few hours of trying. Also, anyone with real experience on these axles? It's been my experience that when a pinion seal leaks, its because the pinion bearings are shot and the pinion shaft is moving around. Does that hold true for these axles?

Thanks for any feedback.:cheers2:
 
#2 ·
I had my WJ safety inspected yesterday, only a few things failed. The rear upper control arm bushings, rear sway bar links and a leaky rear axle pinion seal. The first items are simple for me to fix. I'm not afraid to tackle the pinion seal, I have set up gears in the past. I just have no experience with the 44a and I can't seem to find anything on the webz about them, only the "regular" Dana 44's.

Can anyone offer up a link that shows an exploded diagram? I've come up empty handed after a few hours of trying. Also, anyone with real experience on these axles? It's been my experience that when a pinion seal leaks, its because the pinion bearings are shot and the pinion shaft is moving around. Does that hold true for these axles?

Thanks for any feedback.:cheers2:
A pinion seal is easy. Remove the driveshaft at the rear yoke, remove yoke, use a seal puller to remove seal, install seal, torque yoke nut to spec, reinstall driveshaft, top off fluid. If you really want to you can replace your crush collar and/or check rotational torque, but it's not necessary.
A pinion seal can leak without any bearings going bad. It's very common.
 
#5 ·
Pretty sure yer gonna need to pull the carrier/ring gear if your checking pinion bearing preload. Other wise you have the drag of all the rear end components in the mix, giving you a much higher reading.
 
#7 ·
You guys are WAYYYY overthinking this. Mark the pinion and the nut, so that you can line things back up later. Count exactly how many turns it takes to remove the nut. Replace the seal, crank the nut back on the same number of turns that it took to remove it and line up the marks that you made earlier. Enjoy a cold beverage. :)
 
#14 ·
Thanks for the diagram 86cj74.2l. I have a in/lb and a ft/lb beam type torque wrench along with click stop torque wrenches. After I tried "dana 44hd" in the google webz search, lots of info came up. Interesting that the Viper and Corvette use a version of this diffy. It's definitely a crush sleeve pinion setup, so a new seal and crush sleeve will be ordered. Thanks to everyone else for the replies.
 
#15 ·
2ndhandWJman said:
Thanks for the diagram 86cj74.2l. I have a in/lb and a ft/lb beam type torque wrench along with click stop torque wrenches. After I tried "dana 44hd" in the google webz search, lots of info came up. Interesting that the Viper and Corvette use a version of this diffy. It's definitely a crush sleeve pinion setup, so a new seal and crush sleeve will be ordered. Thanks to everyone else for the replies.
you can check the rotating torque first and then take it apart and keep the crush sleeve and retorque to the same rotating torque also.
 
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