Pinion Seal Replacement dana 30

RaggedOleMan · May 13, 2010

2005 Jeep Tj, d30 - d35c, I-6, 6spd manual.

My rig has 119.5k miles on it. The overwhelming majority are hwy miles, but, it's seen its fair share of off road miles, too. Recently, while doing a grease job under it I noticed the front pinion seal was starting to leak. Well, at 119.5k that old seal deserved to be retired so I set forth to set it free...

Let me correct that. I've never done this procedure and so I sought out the help of someone who had, Bill M; 87YjBill. I took the following pictures and asked a boatload of stupid questions as Bill patiently responded, and allowed me to take photo's at each step. Thanks a million Bill! Here we go...

Removing the yoke strap bolts to drop the axle end of the front drive shaft. NOTE; That impact wrench is 950lbs.

Dropped the axle end of the front drive shaft.

With a punch, Bill marked the relationship between the pinion shaft and the pinion nut so that at reassembly it could go back together exactly the same way, so as to not change the pre-load.

Pinion nut removed with a good impact gun. Sorry, I forgot to note the socket size...for that matter, I didn't document any of the tools/sockets etc. I was to busy asking stupid questions and trying to get enough light to shoot the pics......

Removing the yoke required a few strategically placed blows...

The leaky seal.

Bill starts with a chisel to peel back an edge of the seal.

Here's the seal partly "peeled" back.

Next he gets a "Seal Puller" and prys the old seal the rest of the way out. With a little work, it comes out. I should mention that while doing this, Bill whacked the bejeebers out of his funny bone on the passenger LCA bolt...that was probably worth $10.00...

Now he cleans up the yoke with a wire brush. At this point we run to NAPA to pick up the new seal he ordered the day before. While we were gone, we grabbed some lunch. Couple of huge Wally Burgers/Buckley, WA with fries and rings...

Here's the new pinion seal...hope you can read the part number...NAPA 15525

Carefully tapping in the new seal to seat it.

Time to put it all back together! Installing the yoke...

The pinion nut re-installation. Bill uses an impact gun to get it as close to lining up as possible. Removes the gun/socket and checks to see how close it is. He goes through this a few times before he gets it EXACTLY where it was when we started...

All that was left was to install the drive shaft and go for a test drive!

It went very smooth. No surprises. The cost of the pinion seal from NAPA was $7.70. Bills labor was $50.00. While we were under there we decided it was a good time to drill that top hole in the rear track bar relocation bracket and cinch it up. And...while we were poking around under there Bill noticed my passenger side M.O.R.E. 1" Bombproof (Rubber) motor mount never got completely bolted up/cinched. Seems when I installed them two years ago I forgot to finish bolting it up...what can I say? A rookie mistake! But, now it got caught and corrected! Oh, add another $30 to the bill for my screw-ups...

Thanks Bill, I'm sure you couldn't have done it without me...

TJdualsport · May 13, 2010

looks good. exactly how i did mine

_KONG_ · May 13, 2010

Did you check your vent tube to make sure there weren't any clogs that could cause your seal to fail again?

vindicated · May 13, 2010

you got a :thumbsup: and a 5 star from me. This was complete. Is that seal the same as an 06'??? The one I bought for the job doesnt have that lip!

mhodson187 · May 13, 2010

Good post just picked up a seal tonight to do my rear.

RaggedOleMan · May 13, 2010

KONG said:
Did you check your vent tube to make sure there weren't any clogs that could cause your seal to fail again?

No, I didn't and I don't recall if Bill did either. Thanks for the heads up!

vindicated said:
you got a :thumbsup: and a 5 star from me. This was complete. Is that seal the same as an 06'??? The one I bought for the job doesnt have that lip!

Thank you vindicated...I don't know for a fact that the seal for the 05 and 06 are the same. Presumably, it is. That said, I believe you're correct in that the seal Bill removed didn't have a lip, but, the replacement one from NAPA did...

The part number from NAPA is; 15525 / Axle Pinion Seal. It was $7.70 w/tax. The list price on it was $10.21, but I think Bill gets/got a courtesy discount...

vindicated · May 13, 2010

well, some auto parts store here gave me #15788.. Now it makes me wonder...

MO2500 · May 13, 2010

vindicated said:
well, some auto parts store here gave me #15788.. Now it makes me wonder...

There shouldn't be any difference in years. As long as the seal is for a TJ D30 you should be good :thumbsup:

I have seen several different looking seals from different brands but they all do the same thing. I believe i got the dana spicer seal online somewhere for around $5

cupojava · May 20, 2010

I'm wondering if its just brand and/or price. I was given part 15791 from NAPA for the same thing, a pinion seal, and it was over $30. The part from the OP was less than $10. I haven't used mine yet, now I think I will take it back and switch to the other one.

dlysle · May 17, 2011

know this thread is a year old, but i searched Napa and Advance Auto web sites last night with no luck looking for a front d30 pinion seal, so i went to NAPA this morning to talk to them. they have no part listed for a front pinion seal for my '06 LJ. they listed a rear seal for a d35 and one for a d44. i had heard somewhere on here before that the front and rear were the same. a quick call to the local Jeep dealer parts guys and he said the rear d44 and the front d30 are the same seal, but the d35 is different. i got the one for the 44 and it's the same NAPA number listed above, 15525. i'll let you know if it fits this weekend.

02OlllllllOTJ · May 17, 2011

i dont know if its necessary but when i did my rear pinion seal i used a small bead of rtv around the seal before it was fully seated, tapped it in the rest of the way and cleaned up what oozed out. i did it that way because of a thread i read here on JF

freeskier93 · May 17, 2011

Nice job.

I would add along with the NAPA part number you gave is if people go somewhere else to make sure they take the seal out of the box and make sure it has the lip like yours has. Some don't have the lip and make it almsot impossible to properly seat the seal.

MO2500 · May 18, 2011

02OlllllllOTJ said:
i dont know if its necessary but when i did my rear pinion seal i used a small bead of rtv around the seal before it was fully seated, tapped it in the rest of the way and cleaned up what oozed out. i did it that way because of a thread i read here on JF

I do the same. Just a thin bead around the outside diameter of the seal where it seats in the axle housing.

jbarrett · May 18, 2011

Hey Guys - this is a good guide and I would like to try and follow it to replace my own pinion seal leak. I had a few questions.

1. This is for a Dana30 - I have a Dana35. I'm assuming it's the same.

2. How do you truly get the pinion nut back on? The service manual says before removing the nut, you need to measure the torque required to turn the yoke several times. Can you really (and accurately) mark the location of the nut prior to removal? What's the tolerance or room for error?

3. Does the new seal need to be "seated" with a special tool? I had heard that you need a "seal set" to correctly align the pinion seal because it needs to be perfectly centered.

Thanks!

RaggedOleMan · May 18, 2011

1. The d35 has a crush sleeve, the d30 does not.
2. We marked the location of the pinion nut in one of the photo's above.
3. I'm not aware of a special tool to set the seal, though there may indeed be one.

I'm also about to do my d35, the critical issue is the crush sleeve. By over tightening it, the crush sleeve will compress further, and change the relationship of the pinion gear to the ring gear.

Knuckelhead · May 18, 2011

RaggedOleMan said:
1. The d35 has a crush sleeve, the d30 does not.

I'm also about to do my d35, the critical issue is the crush sleeve. By over tightening it, the crush sleeve will compress further, and change the relationship of the pinion gear to the ring gear.

The LPd30 has a crush sleeve, the HPd30 doesn't.

If you over tighten the pinion nut and have a crush sleeve, the pinion bearing tolerance changes and may fail...

jbarrett · May 18, 2011

So I guess I should take it to a shop. Thanks guys.

MO2500 · May 18, 2011

RaggedOleMan said:
By over tightening it, the crush sleeve will compress further, and change the relationship of the pinion gear to the ring gear.

While over tightening would crush the sleeve, it won't change the relationship of the pinion gear to the ring gear. The pinion is shimmed for pinion depth under the bearing or race. What crushing the sleeve will do is greatly increase you pinion bearing pre-load and lead to pinion bearing failure as Knuckelhead mentioned.

I'm not trying to make it sound less crucial because it is extremely important to maintain proper bearing pre-load. However, the crush sleeve is not used to set pinion depth and does not effect the gear setup.

jbarrett said:
Hey Guys - this is a good guide and I would like to try and follow it to replace my own pinion seal leak. I had a few questions.

1. This is for a Dana30 - I have a Dana35. I'm assuming it's the same.

2. How do you truly get the pinion nut back on? The service manual says before removing the nut, you need to measure the torque required to turn the yoke several times. Can you really (and accurately) mark the location of the nut prior to removal? What's the tolerance or room for error?

3. Does the new seal need to be "seated" with a special tool? I had heard that you need a "seal set" to correctly align the pinion seal because it needs to be perfectly centered.

Thanks!

jbarrett said:
So I guess I should take it to a shop. Thanks guys.

1. Same procedure for the D35 as the low pinion D30 that comes stock in non-rubicon TJs and LJs. They both use crush sleeves so maintaining bearing pre-load is important.

2. the truly accurate way to do it would be to remove the carrier, measure pinion bearing preload using an inch pound torque wrench and take note. Then reassemble with a new crush sleeve and new pinion nut and gradually crush the sleeve until achieving the desired bearing pre-load.

This is not the only way to do it. As was done with this write-up, marking the pinion nut and pinion threads and then tightening back to that same mark or just a 1/16" past works fine. You MUST use red loctite on the old pinion nut though. They are considered a one time use nut so they will want to back off if re-used without loctite.
Another method is to tighten the pinion nut to somewhere between 165-180 ft-lbs using a new pinion nut. The idea here is that it maintains a tolerable bearing pre-load since it takes over 200 ft-lbs to crush the sleeve.

I have personally tried both of these methods, one when changing the seal on my D30 and the other when changing it on my D35. I have not had any problems since.

3. Carefully tap the seal in straight and evenly. do not try and seat one side first and then the other. I used a small hammer and gently tapped around the edge of the seal until it was fully seated.

If your have some mechanic skills you can preform this job. I think the biggest problem most will run into is removing the pinion nut which usually requires a very large breaker bar and a lot of grunting as someone else stands on the brakes to keep the jeep from moving. A strong impact gun can do the job as well. Since the pinion nuts are designed to lock on the threads they can be a PITA to remove.

freeskier93 · May 18, 2011

Since it was asked, a race and seal driver set is the tool you would use to push in seals. But as others have said there are other ways. A set is like 40 bucks or so, it would only be worth it to buy a set if you set up gears and to to press in bearing races.

Of course you don't even need the kit for races, but if your doing gees you minus well sped the 40 bucks.

NAlbertaTJ · Oct 7, 2011

How about the seal replacement on the D44 in the rear?

Pinion Seal Replacement dana 30

RaggedOleMan

TJdualsport

_KONG_

vindicated

mhodson187

RaggedOleMan

vindicated

MO2500

cupojava

dlysle

02OlllllllOTJ

freeskier93

MO2500

jbarrett

RaggedOleMan

Knuckelhead

jbarrett

MO2500

freeskier93

NAlbertaTJ

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