I'm now convinced that I should convert both the front and rear hubs to oil feed on a Defender, but still have a few questions.
Also from the diag, (7) refers to "inner
and outer hub seals."
Are both these seals replaced by a single RTC3511 oil seal? The RTC3511 oil seal is a double lipped and double garter sping seal - they are possibly referring to each of these as being the 'inner & outer' seals. The 'inner' lip retains the oil & the 'outer' lip excludes the mud & gunk from entering - they are both part of the one RTC3511 oil seal. Ensure that you coat the lips of the seal with grease during assembly.
There is no mention of replacing the seal on the spherical housing, so is it ok as is? The large seal on the sperical CV housing does not require replacing (if in good condition). It is not imperative that seal No. 8 be removed as oil from the CV housing will lubricate the wheel bearings. I have never removed the Cv housing in order to remove the No. 8 seal - I usually simply remove the axle and cut the seal away, taking care to remove all debris.
For the REAR hubs,
- is there an "axle shaft seal" (similar to 8 on the diag) to be removed, No. However there is a seal the same as No.23 in the inner end of the stub axle which must be removed. Note that due to the one piece rear axle, there is no needle roller bearing adjacent to this seal in the rear stub axles. On the front stub axle, seal No. 23 can simply be cut away - this saves the need to remove & replace the needle roller bearings.
- do I remove the "inner hub oil seal" (as per Defender Manual Sect51 p41), and
- replace the "outer hub oil seal" with the RTC5311 oil seal? Seal (or 'grease wiper') No. 7 is the one you replace with RTC3511.
Thanks