front diff leaking
 

I was looking under the truck and noticed that the front diff was leaking. Is it hard to replace the seal? I have a lift but would it be easier just to pay someone?

I actually found the leak in the seal... its got a little tare/rip action going on... is there any way to repair that? I was thinkin of duc-tape

All you would have to do is drop the differential down, unbolt the cover, drain the oil, clean the old gasket stuff off and put some new on, then put it all back together and fill it up with oil again. Probably a 3-4 hour job with hand tools I guess. Be careful though that front diff is HEAVY!

you sould actually probably get away will just unbolting the front drveshaft and then using an impact gun take the nut of the the pnion seal area tweak it out and slide the new one in. this is sort of just a theory though. Ive never actually done it like that.


these things go out a lot from what I ve seen and I think a tweaked front drveshaft is the culprit.

I did the samething, I got it fixed under warrenty. My friend works for ford so he did the repair. He said I had all kinds of dirt and muck caked in there rubbing on the back of the seal, like sand paper. Its a good idea if you off road to wash it good right there to stop that from happening.

As for the repair I don't think its too big of a deal.

its comming from the diff cover... ive pretty much got everything at my house... including the lift

Don't do that if you don't know what you are doing. The pinion nut sets the pinion bearing preload and if you just hammer the nut back on after replacing the seal you'll burn up your bearings really quick. Have a shop do it unless you have a dial-type torque wrench and a tool to keep the yoke from turning.

It may SEEM like its coming from the differential cover but I doubt it.

Unless you're POSITIVE it's coming from there the more likely source is the pinion seal as Ben explained.

I had this replaced under warranty also, a fairly common problem on Ranger 4x4's but not enough so to warrant a recall. Anyway I thought it was my front cover too, but after cleaning it off throughly and placing some cardboard under the truck for a few nights I determined it was in fact the pinion seal.

Either way use caution, thats an all aluminum housing, A LOT less forgiving than cast iron!!! Get a torque wrench if you do take off the front cover, you can't over tighten when replacing...Aluminum is great, when treated carefully.