what would usually make the pinion seal on my front axle just crap out all of a sudden? the truck's got 101k on it, i recently drove it through a pond, amongst an a$$load of other mud holes and obstacles and figure that this would probably be the cause, yet these seem unlikely. the fix seems like a fairly easy job if its just the seal.

is there anything i should do while i have everything else apart?

any help is greatly appreciated.

thanks, drew