Front driver side axle seal?

Vibrating rear diff ?

So was replacing my rear driveshaft this weekend and noticed a small pool on the floor at my front driver side wheel. Looking around seems it was coming from the axle and was a silvery color leading me to guess it’s a bad seal. It wasn’t a significant amount of fluid but still something I want to take care of before it’s a more involved repair. Since I’m under a time crunch with a trip to Rausch this weekend I just made an appointment with Jeep service but had a few questions.

1. Is there any chance it was something temporary? The leak occurred when the vehicle was up in the air. I cleaned it up and didn’t have any more fluid come out and nothing when it is sitting on the ground. I should add the driver side of the axle was also sitting lower... I think caused by the garage lift not being perfectly level, but didn’t think to take any measurements til writing this.

2. My friend had his repaired under warranty despite obvious wear and damage from off-road use. I’m kind of hoping for the same but unsure how they’ll feel about coil over modifications... he only has 3” enforcer lift. Have any of you had experience with trying to get things covered under warranty with similar mods?

3. Any idea what I should expect cost wise? I’d normally do this myself but with no weekend to wrench I don’t have an option really. Just sucks it’s coinciding with bills and the week between paychecks.

4. What should I expect them to find wrong and be replacing repairing? Am I crazy for not trusting them to put everything back correctly... at minimum I assume I should re-torque the spacer and wheel.

5. Is there anything I should be checking or watching for as a cause or to prevent it from reoccurring? I can’t think of anything to be the cause as it’s only been on road since I did the coilovers and had zero problems til I raised it this weekend to work under. My thought is it’s maybe a result of muscling the axle around or possibly addition of spacers? I’ve been consciously checking everything at least once a day so I know it wasn’t leaking at any other point.


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Did you have the axle shaft removed while it was on the lift?
If you did - and it was on any bit of an angle it probably just leaked out of the seal.
If the shaft wasn't removed, then your seal might be on it's way out.

JKDream said:

Did you have the axle shaft removed while it was on the lift?
If you did - and it was on any bit of an angle it probably just leaked out of the seal.
If the shaft wasn't removed, then your seal might be on it's way out.

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I removed nothing from the axles during the work other than suspension components.

I should add that yes, I’m one of those guys still on stock axles but only 33s


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CapnMericaMyCopilot said:

I removed nothing from the axles during the work other than suspension components.

I should add that yes, I’m one of those guys still on stock axles but only 33s


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Click to expand...

Then either the seal is toast, or the axle is bent. Given that you are only on 33's, I'm going to bet it's just a worn out seal.

You can ride it out for a little while, just make sure there is sufficient diff fluid. I had it coming out both sides slowly for 5-6months until I finally replaced them this past weekend.

JKDream said:

Then either the seal is toast, or the axle is bent. Given that you are only on 33's, I'm going to bet it's just a worn out seal.

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I will be very upset if it’s bent and I don’t even have a cool story for why.

Jsouder53 said:

You can ride it out for a little while, just make sure there is sufficient diff fluid. I had it coming out both sides slowly for 5-6months until I finally replaced them this past weekend.

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Yeah I just worry about it becoming a more costly fix with time. I’ll have to see what they come back with and decide.



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CapnMericaMyCopilot said:

Yeah I just worry about it becoming a more costly fix with time. I’ll have to see what they come back with and decide.



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Click to expand...

If it comes down to you replacing your inner axle seals, this thread helped me learn a lot about the “new” inner axle seals that Jeep came out with in 2013... it’s a 2 piece seal that fail sooner I feel. I didn’t realize it was a 2 piece seal and I left a piece inside when I started installing the new seals I destroyed one of new ones.

https://wayalife.com/showthread.php/54132-Inner-axle-seal-experimenting

Thankfully they’re replacing them under warranty. Unfortunately they need extra time due to the lift... from what I’ve seen I’m not sure why the coil overs would effect it? My understanding is that it’s about the wheel and rotor, not suspension. Now I’ll just be driving around wondering if they screwed something up.

They did try to get me to change the front and rear diff fluid ($420). But even following the severe driving maintenance schedule I’m not at 30k. Plus I feel this is relatively easy... pull the plug, drain, refill? Or is there some aspect I am missing to make it cost so much?


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CapnMericaMyCopilot said:

They did try to get me to change the front and rear diff fluid ($420). But even following the severe driving maintenance schedule I’m not at 30k. Plus I feel this is relatively easy... pull the plug, drain, refill? Or is there some aspect I am missing to make it cost so much?


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That is ruthless. You are correct, it's just pulling the drain plug and re-filling. I'd recommend to pull the cover once every couple of changes and check the gears, but even at that, I would never pay $400+ for it.

JKDream said:

That is ruthless. You are correct, it's just pulling the drain plug and re-filling. I'd recommend to pull the cover once every couple of changes and check the gears, but even at that, I would never pay $400+ for it.

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Yeah I asked my local buddy with a Jeep (the one who told me they did his under warranty) and he said it’s probably their attempt to make back the warranty work. He said they should be draining it to replace the seals and would be like “getting tires then being charged for air”. Plus it didn’t even match their online service pricing of ~300. Unless they’re just upcharging every kind of service due to the lift... hit me up on the wheel alignment for that one too

Apparently the tech said the fluid was “filthy” so a) how would he know this and b) what leaked out seemed clean as a whistle... I described it to my friend as the color of the mercury in a thermometer. I’m interested to see what the paper work says


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They have to change the front diff fluid to do the seals. The entire diff has to be popped out. Tell them to pack sand for charging $400 for $20 worth of gear lube and a $10 gasket (if they even used a gasket).

CapnMericaMyCopilot said:

They did try to get me to change the front and rear diff fluid ($420). But even following the severe driving maintenance schedule I’m not at 30k. Plus I feel this is relatively easy... pull the plug, drain, refill? Or is there some aspect I am missing to make it cost so much?


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Click to expand...

Fluid has to be changed when doing the front seals. They're trying to bone you.

$420, sounds like they're charging you for the entire job.

This guy's video gives you a 5 minute view of what it takes to do the job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvxKZbQArnQ

I've got to replace my seals as well. Plan to do it over Thanksgiving. For me, It'll be a 6 hour job. Figure shop should be able to do it less than 4 hrs. They've got benefit of a lift and practice. $100/hr (or whatever your local shops charge), plus parts/materials. At $420, it really sounds like they're double-dipping.

Now, out of warranty, I think $420's probably not a bad deal.

CapnMericaMyCopilot said:

Thankfully they’re replacing them under warranty. Unfortunately they need extra time due to the lift... from what I’ve seen I’m not sure why the coil overs would effect it? My understanding is that it’s about the wheel and rotor, not suspension. Now I’ll just be driving around wondering if they screwed something up.

They did try to get me to change the front and rear diff fluid ($420). But even following the severe driving maintenance schedule I’m not at 30k. Plus I feel this is relatively easy... pull the plug, drain, refill? Or is there some aspect I am missing to make it cost so much?


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Click to expand...

That’s good that they’ll be doing it under warranty [emoji106] $420 is crazy, maybe not for seals included.

That’s weird they say they need extra time because of the lift... the lift shouldn’t effect it at all...

Picked it up today. Other than the wheel alignment everything they did was under warranty. Both front axle seals, sensors at each wheel (thought I’d fixed this but they got an intermittent error) and they even replaced my two week old drag link... it was ‘frozen’’ (?) I did check to make sure they put in a RHD one tho, and sure enough they had. All in all the drive is improved and think I got my $260 worth.

By frozen do they mean that it was binding or the bushing was shot? Just curious if I need to be on the lookout for something.


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CapnMericaMyCopilot said:

Picked it up today. Other than the wheel alignment everything they did was under warranty. Both front axle seals, sensors at each wheel (thought I’d fixed this but they got an intermittent error) and they even replaced my two week old drag link... it was ‘frozen’’ (?) I did check to make sure they put in a RHD one tho, and sure enough they had. All in all the drive is improved and think I got my $260 worth.

By frozen do they mean that it was binding or the bushing was shot? Just curious if I need to be on the lookout for something.


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Click to expand...

Glad to hear it’s all good! And that’s not bad for $260!

Jsouder53 said:

Glad to hear it’s all good! And that’s not bad for $260!

Click to expand...

Not at all. When she started listing everything they did I was ready to say I’ll be back on payday. Think they even replaced the whole tie rod assembly cuz it’s shiny and rust free [emoji41]


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Vibrating Rear Diff

So bringing this back because Monday morning I noticed a slight grinding/whirring sound only while coasting. After stopping for my morning coffee it then started also happening while braking. The pitch changes slightly depending on speed and gets somewhat skippy down under 20. Thinking it was some dirt or debris I washed out in the wheels and brakes at which point I fell down the stairs and messed up my shoulder (it’s ok to chuckle, looking back it was hilarious I’ll admit).

My hope was my efforts did the trick but they did not. Unable to really do much more myself in the current state I brought it back in (to a different service department) to have them diagnose. Just got a call that they can’t quite tell what the deal is with the noise but that there is significant vibration in the rear differential. Having not gone into yet they’re not sure but he said it could either be that the pinion nut got over tightened (would be my fault [emoji17]) or when they did the previous work they skimped on fluid which he sees surprisingly often.

Guess my question is what should I expect to hear tomorrow? Don’t much like blindly dealing with this stuff or relying on others to do my Jeep work (I really enjoy most of it) but issue was sort of forced by the circumstances.


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