Bought a junk yard e locked rear end, is this concerning?

You can’t see the oil seal I’m talking about in the photo. It’s inside the axle housing

 

Yup. I stand corrected. I forgot about that pic. I was thinking of the one where the axle shaft was all the way in

 

@cruxofthebisquit I used the 3D printed oil seal driver designed by @nzbrock but I didnt want to hammer it in too hard and mess up the seal.
@nzbrock can you comment on the position of the oil seal?

 

I honestly can't remember, but you should just measure the depth of the axle housing "socket" and measure the height of the axle seal (might be 8mm) to determine if it's all the way in. I gave mine some pretty solid whacks with a mallet to drive it in.

 

Yes, like others have already stated, you can delete the ABS tone ring because it's not doing anything for you. OP. from the pic you showed of your sharpie test, it does look like to me your seal isn't driven in fully. With 5mm of polished axle showing above the inner retainer, your sharpie test should show the seal riding a little closer to dead center on that 10mm polished shoulder of the retainer. It looks like to me the seal might be a couple millimeters from being fully seated in the axle housing.

This isn't an absolute exact science because there could be some slight variations in the axle and that's why we do a grease test or sharpie test to confirm where the seal is riding on the retainer. With that said, 5mm of polished axle showing above the retainer has been a pretty darn good measurement to go by with the 12 sets of axles I've done press work on. I would first try driving in the seal further. You can tell by the sound of your strikes when it's fully seated. When the seal bottoms out, the sound will be more solid, if that makes sense and you will also see the face of the seal is even with that bevel inside the axle housing.

 

Thanks so much, @nzbrock and @Timmah! . I’m going to pull the axle shafts in the morning after I get off work and try to drive them in more. I guess I was a little worried about messing up the seal by hammering too hard

 

If you use that 3D printed driver and hit it straight I doubt you can mess it up. Just watch through the ABS hole to see if it moves.