drippy came back (final drive leak)

[bigdee]

well I thought I fixed my final drive leak , thought I might be paying for another $38 seal........well it was driving me crazy thinking what was the cause, plugged breather ? bad seal ? seal damanged during installation ? ripped her apart on Sunday and the only thing that was different was that the seal was driven in a bit to far, the sealing area had a seat that I figured it sat on..........wrong, it just needs to be flush, we are just talking a 1/16 of an inch.............yes it makes a difference . now the hard part, had to remove all those bolts that held the (ring gear ?) in place, I think 10 or so, there are two small threaded holes that I now believe are used to push that backing plate off , I did however use a brass drift to get some movement on that backing plate , there is a large o-ring that seals in a recess, 30 years of heat that part is tight..........slow and easy wins the race. once off I used a large rubber mallet to drive the splined gear assembly apart, set upon two 2x4 ...........you are actually driving out the large caged roller bearing, be careful of the small spacer washers located on this piece as to not loose them, I was able to drive the seal out to the flush position on backing plate witout totaly removing seal , at the top of that plate the breather hole is located, blow some compressed ait thru to just make sure it is clear ( cant really see that becoming plugged) , I think that the seal distorted when driven in to far and also an oil return space on the seating area was restricted, I was able to save my seal and glean some education in process, I was amazed at how clean the gear was and housing , I used some silicone grease on the old o-ring which was in excellent condition , no oil had even made its way to that , it also sits in a large recess , very close tolerances back there , put her all back together , moly lubed the splines , blue thread lock on housing bolts, filled her up with gear lube and we are dry once again. It would have been easier to just buy another seal but I needed to find the root cause. remember dont rush - keep it flush hope this helps