Passenger Drive Axle (Again!!)

Andy Kunkle andy@tag-tag.com
Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:51:19 -0600


Hey Guys and Gals!!

Ok, I finally have some good news about my whole leaking passenger side
axle problem. What I ended up doing was the following:

I bought a new seal for the transmission (oil differential seal?) and put
that in.
I installed the axle that I received from Raxles.com (Great company!) and
filled the tranny. When it got to almost full, the oil started leaking out
of the
axle... *crap* so I drain the juice again, remove axle, remove oil seal and
inspect. It all seems fine. So then I think I became ingenious... I took the
new
seal and put it into the transmission where it belongs, and then took the
old
seal and put it on the axle so it created the proper seal with the
metal ring/dust cover/whatever it is on the axle. I then slid the axle in.
There
was some space between where the axle part lines up with the bracket (with
the 3 bolts) that's on the engine . So I took the bolts and fed them in and
started tightening down... the seals compressed and the axle went in to
where
it's supposed to be!!!

So after getting the bolts all tight, I gave the wheel a nice spin or 2 to
see how
it moved.. I thought maybe having those 2 seals in there would cause some
kind of binding, but as far as I can tell, that's not the case!! So I then
added
the fluid, still pesimistic about the whole thing, and you know what? It
didn't
leak! It's been 2 days and I've yet to see a drop from it. I am quite
pleased!

I wonder if having those 2 seals in there is going to pose any problems. I
can't imagine that it will. It might be creating a little bit more pressure
than
what is normally there, but I don't forsee it causing problems... I don't
know.
I'm just happy it works. What do you all think?

Total cost: $7.35 for the other seal, plus the $220 or whatever from
Raxles... yeesh, what a mess! I still don't understand why I'm the only
person who's ever had this problem!

Not a bad fix, eh? Well, that's about all I got. I just wanted to share that
information with you. Thanks again for all of your help guys!!

Sincerely,

Andy Kunkle
91 SE-R
non leaking transmission!!
Gti-R engine still yet to see any road time.