Transfer Case Leak

I ended up having a leak on the transfer case in my 2017 Pro. I'm still under Toyota Care but they looked at the leak and determined it was coming from the seal area where there's that pink fipg sealant. They ended up taking the case apart and noticed that there was about a 2-3" part of the seal that was missing. Looks like factory machines can make mistakes! Anyways, hand laid new fipg sealant and put the case back together and the leak is now gone. Not sure how common this is but it was definitely an issue on my truck that luckily got repaired quick. My truck was in the shop for 8 hours to get the seal replaced. I left it there overnight to let the sealant dry and picked it up the next day.

 

I have a 2016 TRD Off Road, I bought the truck back in October 2019. It has about 104000. I bought it from a used car dealer. The t-case was leaking when I bought it, and had started going into limp mode the day after I took it home. The used car dealer paid to have the t-case seals (output shaft seal, and seal between transmission and t-case) replaced. I noticed in December when putting steps on that the t-case was still leaking. I just recently took it to a Toyota Dealer and they said the repair was going to be around 700 dollars to replace the seals that were just replaced. I called the used car dealer and they referred me to the shop that did the repair intially. They replaced the seals again for free and also replaced a retainer seal? Not feeling to well about third gen tacomas. I've had jeeps in the past and really didn't have a lot of issues with them. Are second gens better? I'm debating trading in for a second gen with less miles

 

Peeked under the truck this weekend and noticed what appears to be some oil on the transfer case. Seems that there's a drop or two more near the fill plug. Should I be calling the dealer to have it checked out?

https://i.imgur.com/ZRAzTvX.jpg

 

I would.

 

My seal was leaking.

 

Yeah. Took it in and dealer filed down part of the fill hole and replaced the gasket. All under warranty. Seems fixed after several hundred miles.

 

https://www.redlineoil.com/mt-lv-70w75w

 

I know I’m digging up an old post but I have to replace the seals in my transfer case because they it is also leaking but in a Gen3 Tacoma that looks like it’s the same transfer case as the GEN5 4runner with the exception of needing this synthetic oil.


Three things I am curious about.
1. The O-ring seems a bit large and I wonder if it matters because they are $15 at Toyota here in Canada and I might not be able to match it up in a local auto store
Did you replace the O-ring?

2. The bearing closest to the transfer case the 008 bearing appears to be sitting about 2mm out from the bottom of the bearing seat and I don’t know if it should be all the way in and maybe Toyota just didn’t put it all the way in.

3. both the 007 and 008 bearing appear to have worn a bit of a groove in the input shaft even though this truck only has 72,000 miles on it.

Does anyone have any insight?

Cheers,
C.