Rear Axle Seal Replacement

Hi everyone, I just finished replacing the inner seals on my 2007 Tacoma's rear axle. I just wanted to share what I did and what I learned. Firstly after researching a bit I was able to find a couple write ups that helped. The one that helped the most was for a 4-Runner so it was a little different but the basics of the steps are the same.
Here is a link to that:
That one is pretty detailed, so i will just point out the differences.
- The part numbers for the orings and seals are different, but the Dealership will give you the right ones. They were $8 for the seals and $3.50 for the orings.

1. First put something under the front wheels to chock them up. Make sure there is no way that the vehicle can roll. Once you have the rear end off the ground (especially if you remove both rear wheels) there is nothing to keep the truck from rolling. The parking brake has to be off to complete the procedure, and the pawl lock (if you have an auto transmission) will not save you, as it only locks up the rear wheels, which will now be off the ground. WARNING: THE VEHICLE MUST NOT BE ABLE TO ROLL, NOT EVEN A CENTIMETER. IF IT ROLLS WHILE UP ON THE JACKSTANDS IT MAY FALL ON YOU AND COULD KILL YOU, MAIM YOU, OR OTHERWISE SERIOUSLY INJURE YOU.

2. Next, get the rear end up one side at a time. I placed a jack under the axle, removed the wheel, and placed a jack stand under the frame near the rear of the vehicle, in front of the rear axle. I also placed a second jack stand under the rear axle to better support the axle and the vehicle itself. The stands under the axle also help to keep it level so that all of your gear oil doesn’t pour out of the pumpkin.

3. Now take the rubber hammer and lightly strike the drum until it comes loose and you can pull it off the wheel studs. Once you remove it, you will see that the inside is full of thick black grease. This is a combination of gear oil and brake dust.

4. Once you have the drum off, you will be able to see all of the brake components inside. These will also be covered with a layer of thick black grease.

5. Take some time at this point to spray down the brake assembly with some brake cleaner. Place a catch pan underneath the brakes, make sure you have good ventilation, and go to town. I used an entire can per side spraying off grease and brake dust with brake cleaner.

6. Next, locate the rubber brake lines where they come to the axle and into the metal line just to the drivers side of the pumpkin. One at a time use some vice grip pliers to pinch the line closed, but not too tight, or you may damage the line. This will prevent you from losing large amounts of brake fluid to gravity when you remove the brake lines from the backing plate.

7. This is where the procedure will differ a bit, from the link. Here you will need to remove the brake shoes and all the springs and stuff attached. The Haynes manual has lots of pictures and a good procedure for this. When its done it will look like this:


8. Now you will need to disconnect the brake line from the cylinder (10mm).


and the ABS Sensor (10mm):


9. Now you will need to remove the Parking brake cable, Just unscrew the 2 10mm bolts and slide it out.




10. When everything is disconnected you can undo the 14mm bolts holding on the backing plate. You might need to spray some penetrant on it as they were pretty tough.



11. And CAREFULLY slide the axle out. It weighs about 30-35 lbs but is awkward, so if you have someone to help you, use them. This will leave you looking like this.




12. Now you can use your seal puller (around $10-$15 at auto zone) to remove the old seal, being careful not to scratch the axle tube.

13. After wiping everything down with a lint free cloth you can install the new seal. Make sure it goes in straight and goes in until it is flush. You can use pvc, a seal driver, or i used a piece of wood and rubber mallet.

14. now put everything back together, dont forget the new o-ring on the backing plate. Check the haynes manual for the torques specs. and bleed the brake lines before you try driving around.

I was pretty nervous about doing this myself, but loking back it was pretty easy, with good preparation and research.

 

Nice write-up. Only suggestion would be to include the correct part numbers for the rear seals. It makes it alot easier to just be able to see the part #, go online and order it for some!

 

Great jobs brother and nice write up . Thank you

 

I realize you only needed seals, but often times if you have the money, do the wheel bearings also. They are right there and if they fail, you must do all of this again.

Good right up though.

PK

 

Well... the wheel bearings aren't cheap, nor are they easy to replace. They are right there but compared to replacing the wheel bearings this is a walk in the park, so no it really doesn't make any sense to replace them unless needed. Also, the majority of the people on this forum wouldn't be able to tackle the wheel bearings but may be able to do the seal.







Also, you can unclip the wheel sensor you don't have to unbolt it.

 

Fantastic write-up! It helped out a lot. I was pretty intimidated to do this and had been putting it off for about 6 months. I completed the "Diff Breather Mod" a month ago to keep from blowing the seal out again, so that was out of the way.
Everything came apart easier than expected. However, I used about 2 cans of brake cleaner and a lot of shop towels to wipe the differential fluid/brake dust/grit and dirt off the inside and out of the drum. It was absolutely horrible looking. When I was taking the axle itself out, it popped out way easier than expected so I really wasn't ready for that.
As I got it out, the retaining spring (or whatever it is called) that holds the seal in place around the axle was dangling at the end of the axle where the splines were along with small piece of elastic string tied around the axle with a loop??? No doubt the spring being out of place is what caused the seal to fail and leak fluid, but I have no idea what the string was there for? Possibly used to hold an identification tag of some sorts and wasn't removed prior to installation.
Reinstallation was also a breeze, except the brakes were a bit of a PITA. But with the use of a Chilton manual, all went as smooth as I could possibly get it. I installed Russell Speedbleeders and bled all the old brake fluid out. They're amazing!
I've driven approximately 600 miles over the past week and I haven't noticed any leaks. If all stays that way, I'll replace the brake shoes and drums before long.


The link below was very useful too. I encourage all to watch before tackling this as well as reading up on this post and the link Masterarcher posted. All combined, even a newb like myself can do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELTp5QqjTKA&list=WL&index=1

 

I also have a leak in the rear driver side axle. I am at a loss trying to put together a parts list to have everything ready for the shop. I want to replace everything that could possibly be a problem, including the bearing and hub assembly. Does anyone who has done this job have a parts list?

 

Does anyone know if a 2008 base model 4 cyl automatic and 5 lug wheels uses a similar setup?

 

pretty sure its identical.

 

My right rear axle seal is leaking. The mechanic told me thats its a 3 hour job that involves removing the bearing to get to the seal. That is not what happened in this video. I showed him what was done in the video and he said that would probably be an hour job.

which is correct?

 

anyone?

 

The 3 hour job is due to the hub/bearing replacement. This is because a leaking seal will let diff oil into the bearing and ruin the grease in the bearing thus shortening life or ruining the bearing. I found out my dealer is willing to do the axle/bearing pressing etc for me for about .5-1 hr of labor. I would agree that 1-1.5hrs is what you would be charged to do just the axle seal. I'm going to tackle this (with bearing replacement) next week! Still hate how intricate drum brakes are, springs and I don't get along... The amount of springs/pieces is stupid, hence why most vehicles have discs now days.

 

This might be a good time to do a rear disk brake conversion.

 

FWIW, I did not replace my wheel bearing when I replaced my seal. I’m at almost 50k since.

The axle has to come out. I disconnect the brake line from the wheel cylinder. Then capped the line to keep the fluid from running out. The worst part for me was the drum brakes. I’ve always found them intimidating.
You’ll also need to disconnect the E-brake cable.

Drain the diff.
I lowered the opposite side of the axle one notch on the jack stand to help keep the diff fluid from running out on me. Even with the diff drained some will still try to run out the axle tube. So lowering the opposite side of the axle helps.

If you are going to replace the bearing, I’d probably let some one else do the job. It’s pressed on the axle. It’s take some funky setup to get it off with out the correct tools.


Good luck to you guys. Hopefully you can be back on the road soon.

 

I did axle seals on my wife's 2008 4th gen 4Runner and I can say on that vehicle it is possible to remove the axle assemblies without disconnecting the e-brake cable and removing all of the drum hardware. Granted that's an entirely different rear brake setup than on our tacomas. But I unbolted the e-brake line brackets as far up the chassis as I could and that actually gave enough slack in the line to just get the axles out.

Might be worth trying on the Tacoma if you're just going after the seals and not the bearings

 

Silly question and I know the answer is in front of me.

How did he take off the brake shoe assembly without taking it all the way apart??

 

The entire axle shaft with backing plate/brake setup will remove with just 4 bolts, and disconnected the brake and e-brake line. No need to mess with drum springs.

 

Oh perfect, I appreciate it. The lowest I was quoted for this repair is $400, with only the wheel seal. I already dropped $1800 to get my steering rack replaced. That one did me in.

 

Is this the best write up for axle seal replacement?

 

not sure what else you’d need to know, seems pretty good to me.