300Tdi leaking diff oil at the wheel.

[travelrover]

Hi all came home to find this on Monday

137585137586

It’s nice clean diff oil running down the inside. Nothing on the outside of the hub (or the RHS). Not had a chance to get under and have a good look yet. I replaced the axles and flanges with heavy duty ones less than 500kms ago. The rotors and brake pads are less than 1000kms old as are the bearings and seals.

At first glance this looks very much like a seal gone but why would this be the case with such low mileage? And why nothing on the outside?

Have I installed something incorrectly?

[gromit]

Is it the diff breather blocked ?
They used a zinc passivated fitting which eventually rusts inside & blocks. Short term fix take it apart and poke out the rust with a piece of wire, long term fix use a nickel plated brass airline fitting.


Colin

[Ancient Mariner]

If you are running oil in the hubs you need Corteco RTC 3511 that need to be installed the correct distance into the hub or will chop out in short order also the space between the seal lips should be well greased

AM

[Rick]

I had a Corteco RTC 3511 fail in short order just after doing the same axle replacement. Could have been me or it just failed. Don't know but I've replaced and seated it the same way and depth and so far so good after several 1000's km and a year or so.

[simmo]

Hi,
i) did you convert to oil filled hubs while you were changing the axles and drive flanges?,

if yes it could just be a matter of fitting a new seal, but before dismantling anything , check to see if your road wheel can "rock" on the stub axle. If the bearing have 2 much clearance they will lean on the seals and make them fail sooner.

ii) if no, and your hubs were still running grease, for the oil to leak out of there, 2 seals have to be leaking- the one that seals the axle as it passes out of the diff housing and the hub seal. ( again if you have sloppy bearings the axle will lean on this seal and wear it out)
And the hub inner seal.

iii) its a longshot but check the stub axle securing bolts are tight.


If you were still grease filled, I would take this as an opportunity to convert to oil filled, and just replace the hub seal with the RTC3511 seal as recommended by another member.


cheers simmo

[travelrover]

Is it the diff breather blocked ?
They used a zinc passivated fitting which eventually rusts inside & blocks. Short term fix take it apart and poke out the rust with a piece of wire, long term fix use a nickel plated brass airline fitting.


Colin

Thanks Colin, I’ll give that a go on the weekend:-)

[travelrover]

If you are running oil in the hubs you need Corteco RTC 3511 that need to be installed the correct distance into the hub or will chop out in short order also the space between the seal lips should be well greased

AM

Hi AM

No not running oil, though the correct seals were provided with the axels and hubs. There’s plenty of grease in there at present.

[travelrover]

Hi,
i) did you convert to oil filled hubs while you were changing the axles and drive flanges?,

if yes it could just be a matter of fitting a new seal, but before dismantling anything , check to see if your road wheel can "rock" on the stub axle. If the bearing have 2 much clearance they will lean on the seals and make them fail sooner.

ii) if no, and your hubs were still running grease, for the oil to leak out of there, 2 seals have to be leaking- the one that seals the axle as it passes out of the diff housing and the hub seal. ( again if you have sloppy bearings the axle will lean on this seal and wear it out)
And the hub inner seal.

iii) its a longshot but check the stub axle securing bolts are tight.


If you were still grease filled, I would take this as an opportunity to convert to oil filled, and just replace the hub seal with the RTC3511 seal as recommended by another member.


cheers simmo

Hi Simmo

I haven’t checked for any movement yet, but today I pulled the breather off and it was completely blocked. So I cleaned it up and blasted some air through the line and reassembled.

Not had a chance to do anything else today but will check as you suggested tomorrow and take it for a run.

Cheers Simon

[travelrover]

Took it for a long run today a nice 40 here and no leaking yet.

I will replace the inner seals in the near future. Too hot to do anything else just now.

[gromit]

If you’re going to Cooma and want some nickel plated brass fittings let me know.
Just confirm the tube OD, I think it’s 6mm but at some point they switched to 4 mm.

Colin

[travelrover]

If you’re going to Cooma and want some nickel plated brass fittings let me know.
Just confirm the tube OD, I think it’s 6mm but at some point they switched to 4 mm.

Colin

Thanks Colin

Thanks for the kind offer. We were planning to go down and booked leave but then got a wedding invite overseas which we really must attend so unfortunately we won’t be there. We get back in the country late on Saturday evening. Planning to head to northern NSW for a few days instead now, once the Easter traffic has calmed down a bit.

Cheers

[travelrover]

Finally had an opportunity to spend some time on this project. I stripped the hub down to swap the seal with the RTC3511.

This is what remained of the last one which as mentioned is less than 1000kms old

139412

Only had time to do the left rear, plan to do the right next weekend. Hopefully this fixes the problem.