leaking at the tube?

[scotts90ranger]

my 7.5 is leaking gear oil at the joint of the axle tube and the pumpkin on the drivers side. a little history on this axle, previous owner put about 175K on the thing, shortly after I got it I was pulling a garage over and the rope snapped in first low, broke a spider tooth off, didn't realize until I pulled the cover off a month down the road, the chunk of gear floating around managed to break the rear pinion bearing cage (still holds the rollers together fine, I think it's just broke on one of the spaces) and the shavings apparently wore down the bearings some enough to make the pinion a little sloppy, so I replaced the pinion seal (was leaking from the pinion) and cranked the pinion nut down to crush the crush sleeve some more, nice and snug now, just a minor trace of oil leading from the pinion, now the oil drips are coming from what looks to be the joint of the tube and pumpkin as I said earlier.

my question is how did I manage this with the 2.3? is it the axle wrap I had with the trashed stock leafs? did it happen when the axle wrap took out the time decayed engine mount? did the previous owner screw something up in one of his drunken wheeling excursions?

I plan to replace it soon with either a sploder 8.8 if I can find one with 4.10's or just a plain old 7.5, in the mean time I'm going to continue to trash on it until it fails...

 

[Sasquatch_Ryda]

Thats the reason for welding the tubes in solid, when you put your 8.8 in, weld em in.