Thread: Rear axle seals

So my Disco has developed another leak. Rear axle seal on the passengers side. Is it just a matter of axle out, hub off and replace the 2 seals? Then put it all back together. The Haynes manual just confused me when I looked it up. Ive done a few seals on Toyotas and stuff but this is my first LR. Any tricky bits I need to look out for?

Dave

PS Ill do both sides while im at it.

PPS Disco is 99 with ABS

Locknut tool - very very handy.

Hubs - give the area the seal runs on a clean up ( Don't be surprised that the old seal has chewed it some - if it's bad, use a speedi sleeve)

Seals - There are 3 choices - the standard Disco 1 grease seal , the RRC 2 lip oil seal and a defender 3 lip seal. Depending on off road use, the RRC seal RTC3511 seems to be a winner ( in terms of availability,price and use). However, with the RTC3511 you have to override the outside lip and drive the seal all the way down the hub. Of course, about this time you may wish to change over full oil lubed bearings.

Preload - pay attention to getting it right. Usually it's sorta tight and then subtract 1 flat of the nut (Google it if you don't have RAVE) .Then when you do the lockwasher, make sure it doesn't move around. If the preload is too much, the bearing heats up the seal, cooks it, and it fails.

Spare seals - Order extras ( 2 for the job and an extra couple). Murphys law says if you have spares you won't need them

That's about it.