Need help

[Ballistik]

What is involved in changing the gasket on the front axel of a 94 ranger 4.0L.
It has the TTB axel and is leaking and I need to change it. I have never done one nad have no idea what is involved. Any help or links would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time.

 

[metalmacguyver]

Assuming your talking about the differential to beam seal, there is no gasket. RTV is used. Basically, you need to remove the 10 bolts holding the diff to the beam, remove the pinch bolt thats hiding by the radius arm and pull the diff. Some times you need to remove the beam which means removing the pivot bolt, the radius arm nut and the coil nut.

Clean up the mating surfaces with a razor to remove the old sealer and apply a healthy bead of RTV on there. Bolt the pig back on to the beam and reassemble.

 

[bobbywalter]

the side seals, which usually are the problem require removing the axleshafts.


and good ettiquette....through cleaning as good as you can before disassembly.


not too bad.

but easier to do with the diff out or whole beam on the bench.

 

[Ballistik]

How long of a project is this. Should I plan on taking a weekend?

 

[Mechanickid]

indeed

 

[bobbywalter]

depends on how deep in the rustbelt the rig is from.



with air tools takes me around 45 min to an hour per side with bearing packing.

cause i am slow at bearing packing...if i have pre paks its a 25 min deal.


that is if i pull the shafts through the spindles...if it was recently brake/bearing serviced, mine was setup(no longer ttb) so i could just drop the beam and and zip the piglet off. had to do that alot to change spiders so seals were done often as well.

 

[Will]

Are you 100% sure it's leaking? It's sealed with crazy orange goop from the factory. A shaft seal is much more likely.

Pain in the ass anyway. If you truck has been apart alot then it's pretty easy. A lot of our trucks are like the engine in trade school that gets taken apart every semester and makes it seems easy--but you get out in the field and you need dynamite as a regularly stocked consumable.

You live in an area where I would think you could get help pretty easy. On a truck that's never been apart there are some trouble areas--like whacking the spindles loose--and you will run into other problems--like u-joints that are frozen solid. In fact, a frozen u-joint that is suddenly used can wipe a diff seal and cause a leak. Which is my guess on yours.

You need a manual anyway.

 

[UrbanRedneckKid]

If it were me, and your truck was my truck, working in the driveway. I'd take the whole weekend, and redo everything. New diff to beam seal/RTV, New axle seals, obviously new gear oil, new u-joints, repack wheel bearing, new radius arm bushings and, (if auto) manual hub swap. and since I was there I'd throw in a set of coil spacers to level it out.

**Maybe no coil spacers for your truck, since it probably sits level with your boat on the back**

But that's just what I would do. Why tear into the frontend more than once? IMO