Replaced rear diff pinion seal, drive shaft and breather

[Coffee]

With or without a breather above waterline top the oil seems to get contaminated. With the price of diffs best practice is to assume the worst after wading and do a fluid change.

Yes. I’ve seen one of the off-road veterans on YouTube (from Australia I think) advise changing your diff fluids after submerging them in water. I can’t recall the details of the statement, only that it is a strongly recommended precaution.

 

[BendRover123]

I found the breather line at the fuel filler neck, no filter on mine either and spliced a new line to it and routed it over the rear passenger wheel well, along the lower side board where the aft heater lines run along, over the front passenger wheel well and along the front lower engine metal bumper (where the washer lines run along), and up where the front differential original breather line ends up, then I routed both through that rubber grommet into the driver side plastic box that houses the ABS system for my car. That seemed pretty easy and avoided at the hot and moving parts.

Yes, sorry. Wheel well liner.

I cannot see a reason why you could not run the line into the engine compartment. Just need to strategically avoid the driveline and exhaust components.

 

[timc930]

Need to do pinion seal on wife's 2015 with HD. Was changing all the fluids and noticed the leak. Apparently been leaking for a while as only 1L came out, should of had 1.6L.

Michael, How long does this take, and any lessons learned??

 

[Michael Gain]

Need to do pinion seal on wife's 2015 with HD. Was changing all the fluids and noticed the leak. Apparently been leaking for a while as only 1L came out, should of had 1.6L.

Michael, How long does this take, and any lessons learned??

I'm sorry I missed this! I honestly don't remember. Probably about two hours start to finish.

Tips:
- buy a silver sharpie and paint pens. You will want to mark orientation of everything. Driveshaft bolts and orientation specifically. I would also label the bolt holes by number on the drive shaft, rear diff, and transfer case. That way, you know that you are orienting everything back the way it came out. Also mark the pinion collar and take a picture of how many thread protrude from the nut. If I remember right, there wasn't a torque value for the nut, but rather a thread depth.

- rent a couple different pullers. The idler pulley puller worked the best for me just by size.

- note how deep the old pinion seal sits into the rear diff. If you don't have the OEM seal seating tool, you're going to have to slowly tap it to the right depth using one of the tools noted below

- take the new pinion seal into an auto parts store and compare it to the seal punches that they have. If none of them are the right size, find a socket that is the right size. If I remember right it's pretty close to 28 or 30mm. In a pinch you can use a 1/4 inch extension, but you risk not setting the seal straight.

I hope that helps!