Front Diff leaking Bad

Just got done driving about 4hrs from home to a campsite and noticed my front diff is leaking pretty bad.

I replaced my CV axles a few months back and followed that up with a front and rear differential oil change about two months or so ago. Earlier this week I noticed some diff oil leaking a little so I took the front skid off, wiped it down, but couldn’t figure out where the leak was coming from. My guess was it had been leaking since I did the oil change. Yesterday afternoon I undid the fill plug and filled it until it started to spill over and then replaced the fill plug. Ended up with about 1qt to fill it back up, which is a lot.

Today after driving about 200 miles on the highway I stopped to get gas and noticed some smoke and an oily rubbery smell. Checked under my truck and I can see a lot of diff oil. Everything looks wet, and it’s dripping quite a bit. I’m hours from home and everywhere is closed for the night, I’ll have to wait till tomorrow and drive into the nearest town from camp to get more diff oil.

any ideas what could be causing the leak? Could it be a blown axle seal? Leaking through the fill plug? Any help would be appreciated

 

Well, shoot. Can you post this in your local region?

https://www.tacomaworld.com/forums/regions.36/

Can you call a family member or AAA tonight?

edit: put "help" in the thread title

 

I got buddies on their way and I’m not necessarily stranded, just worried about losing too much oil in my front differential and damaging it driving back or to the nearest auto shop. More concerned with trying to fix this problem so I’m not constantly topping it off.

I appreciate the concern though!

 

Were you able to see the source of the leak?

 

Did the overflow tube get loose ? If u added too much fluid it will leak . Put the exact amount in the differential even if it is seems like it’s not enough . The fluid will expand with heat if u have to much in there it will come shooting out the overflow tube .

 

Not yet, still at camp. One of my buddies here is a mechanic and he thinks it’s the cv axle seal on the drivers. Makes sense since the oil was mostly on the driver side of the skid plate

 

I was thinking it could be over filled which is why the leaking is worse, but it definitely has a leak too since I had to add about a qt to fill it

 

Well found the leak, coming from the drivers side axle. The axle loose inside the front differential, no idea how it happened or if it’s the axle is bad or the gears are damaged.

any ideas?

https://youtu.be/k_1iSAri0Qw?si=59jl7WnJTDzR-kn1

 

Drivers side? If so the needle bearing could have completely failed, which took out the seal. I've seen em' wobble, but that is bad. If that's the passenger side then it's a normal bearing that I don't think I've ever heard of going bad. Needless to say whatever you got going on there took out the seal.

 

It is drivers side, should I do the ecgs bearing and a new seal?

 

I definitely would. However, you need to look at your CV axle very closely. Might be really galled and scraped up. Don't want that in a new bushing and seal.

 

Is the issue caused by the CV axle or by the diff? My axles are CVJ remanufactured and they’ve only been installed a few months

 

Oh that changes everything... Someone here might know more about this, but if the shaft size was undersized that could have caused problems.

 

The movement you posted is a lot but not out of the ordinary. I'd lean more towards you snagged the axle seal when installing the new cv axle, the spring on the back side of the seal fell off, or you got some dirt/debris between the axle seal and axle when installing.

I would limp it home, adding gear oil along the way. Do the ecgs bushing and new axle seal. I'd bet all will be fine.

For the record I'm a mechanic and have installed over 30 ecgs bushings on Tacomas. If the needle bearing fully let go you would hear some nasty grinding noises and probably would have grenaded the diff by now.

 

Thanks for that info, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m on my way home and adding gear oil as I go. Where in SoCal are you located?

 

Lakewood. 90712. I have all the install/removal tools from ecgs. Makes the process go very smooth.