Front Diff Pinion Seal Replacement Tutorial?

Have an 04 3.4L V6 4WD. Front diff looks to be leaking at pinion seal. Been looking for a tutorial on how to replace this seal? Seen lots of CV axel tutorials but none for the pinion seal. Any know of one?

 

Looks like you just disconnect the drive shaft, remove the 41204E (9017918020) flange nut, probably use a puller to get the flange (with dust shield) out, 41101D (9031138049) is the seal. Not sure if you'd have to go much further than that in there. Maybe look in the FSM for disassembly or installation instructions and torque values. Things like that nut are usually staked (ie, not reusable) but I haven't been into that assembly myself.

 

There are some snipped parts of the FSM I excluded about removing the bearing, and subsequently adjusting the preload- but I am not sure you need to do those if you just wanna replace the oil seal (knowing that you believe that you've had a clogged front diff breather).

If any of that scares you, I'd suggest pulling the whole diff and send it off to ECGS for a rebuild.

 

Yeah this is probably beyond my mechanical aptitude without someone showing me how to do it or without a video. I have a trustworthy mechanic who I know can do it for me but the trust comes at a price.

 

Kind of related but I have the service manual for 03 tacoma's - will that work for the 04's? Or is there some risk things could be slightly different?

 

Same diff.

 

Fair. I would say that the "hard" parts would be the SST to hold the flange in place while removing and resetting the staking nut. You could easily just put in 4wd and call it a day on that one. Pulling the existing seal might present a fun challenge, but probably easy to overcome. Setting the new seal to the specified 4.5mm depth would be the crux of the job- in that, without a special seal driver like they depict, you'd need to use a brass drift to slowly tap around the seal in until it gets to 4.5mm.. That's not impossible though.

I wouldn't think twice about doing that job myself.