Rear axle seal replacement estimate

My bearings were getting bad letting the axle move around and that’s what wore out my seal.

 

That is what my friend told me more than likely happened. He’s a retired mechanic and said I need to replace the bearings…he was trying to talk me into just having a shop do it all for me. I’m a young college kid with not a ton of money and I’d rather learn how to fix it myself.

 

My axle seal blew out when the rear diff breather got stuck closed.
That was at 79k miles. I’m at 135k now. Still on the same rear bearing.

The rear bearing is a PITA to change. Id make sure it’s bad before I paid someone to do it.
I mean, yeah. You probably should replace it. But you said you didn’t have a lot of money and you’re a college student. So maybe you can save up some money and do the bearing later. Like I said, I got 5+ years out of my rear after the leak.

 

my truck has 204k miles on it, so they probably just need to be replaced. I have enough money to do this and have plenty left for security, so $300 to have the bearings pressed isn’t that bad and I can get bearings for abt $150 a pair. The reference to money was mainly that I don’t want to spend 3k to have someone else fix everything wrong when I can spend 1k and do it myself.

 

Yeah. At 204k you should go ahead and do it. Sorry to hear it man.
I know how unexpected expenses can be.
At least you have the money to get it done.

 

Yeah, thx man!

 

Lol, how do you have an 07 with that few miles. That’s crazy!

 

It was a typo. I actually have 155k
Sorry about that.

 

If you have to replace the rear bearings it's best to take it to a machine shop that has a huge press. I tried to remove them with a 12 ton press and the bearings just laughed at it. Used a 20 ton press and still wasn't enough. The machine shop had to cut the collar retainer to get that thing out cuz their press wasn't enough either.

 

Rear bearing aren't too bad if you have a press and the tool (which is cheaper on Ebay). You can also pull the axle yourself (pretty easy again), and take it to a local shop and ask them to press the old one out/new one in.

Once you take the nuts out (and disconnect the brake line and parking brake cable), the axle just slides out. While it's out, doing the seal is easy - just be careful about nicking/damaging the seal when you're putting the axle back in.

If you live in NH, you can borrow my axle press tool I got from Ebay that is sitting in my garage - I even have that adapter so you don't have to swap the bolts to longer ones in order to press.

 

Thx man, I'm in KS so unfortunately can't but appreciate the offer. I'll be taking the axles to a shop they'll press my bearings for abt 300