AandSC

2000 Lexus LS400, 34,000 miles and found what appears to be a passenger side diff oil leak. My guess is it's coming from the seal coming out of the diff. I cleaned it up, checked the fluid level (it was full) and drained the fluid to see if there were any metal shavings (there wasn't any). Searched for quite a while and couldn't find a tutorial on how to change the seal. Anybody done this, or had it done? Cost?

Thanks in advance.

AandSC

Since I may be the first to ever encounter this issue I did some research yesterday. Lexus charges $189 for labor and says it's a 1.8 hour job. Pep Boys charges the same. From the TIS it appears to be a fairly simple job.

Remove exhaust, drain differential, remove wheel, remove axle, remove side gear shaft, remove oil seal.

By these instructions you don't even have to remove the brake, wheel hub or any other rear end components. Soooo, I think I will tackle this myself and do a DIY, just in case someone in the future has this issue. May be a few weeks while I drive and evaluate to ensure the leak is where I think it is.

billydpowe

iTrader: (1)

looks pretty simple to me...
41334B in photo
Toyota Part No.: 90311-47008
SEAL, OIL
Your Price: $14.57
Retail Price:$19.85
Location Passenger Side, or Driver Side
I cant give you the vendor, but you can LOOK and find it.

AandSC

Thanks Billy! Appreciate the help!

dicer

You will have to remove the differential cover, I'm not sure but I think the whole differential needs to come out of the car for that, I don't remember seeing lots of room to get to the cover bolts or to clean the surface. There are C clips that need to be removed so you can take the stub axles out of the housing, what I mean by stub axle are the drive flange for the cv joint. Its not the super easy job you think it is. And besides are you sure its just not grease from the cv joint and not differential lube?

AandSC

After cleaning up the residue and changing the diff oil I drove about 100 miles today, reinspected, and found no new oil/grease. The car drives like new so I'll monitor and see if any more fluid comes out so I can pinpoint where it may have come from.

Here are the instructions for changing the oil seal.

dicer

I thought you were talking about the out puts to the cv shafts not the pinion seal. SINCE YOU DID SHOW A PICTURE OF THE CV JOINT AND THE WETNESS NEAR IT. Those directions are for the pinion seal, notice it says remove the drive shaft!

AandSC

When I looked at this prior to cleaning up the residue the leak appeared to be coming from the differential side gear shaft oil seal. Now I'm not so sure. The residue may be from the Inboard CV joint. I've cleaned everything up and after the first hundred miles had no leak. If the grease has decided to depart its home in the CV joint then I expect I'll be getting the click, click noise before too long. For now I'll monitor it and try to pinpoint the leak. Appreciate the advice given.

dicer

I guess I was wrong the directions are for the side. My bad

Edit here.
I studied the 92 manual on this and it is true that the differential needs to be removed to do the side seals. And a c clip removed to get the flange axles out. I over looked that the info requested here was for a 2000

AandSC

I put a few hundred miles on this weekend, mostly at 75-80 MPH and temps in the 80s-90s. Had a little grease slung from the passenger side inner CV Joint. Turns out that remanufactured CV Axles (halfshafts) for the 95-2000s are impossible to find unless you buy a used one off ebay. The ones I looked at all appeared to be in pretty bad condition.

I ordered the CV Boot repair kits from Rockauto just in case I can't find a replacement axle, and I really don't want to pay $600+ plus for a new one. Anyone know of a place that actually has remanufactured axles onhand? Even A1 Cardone doesn't have any onhand.

Anyone rebuilt their CV joints with just a rebuild kit (doesn't include the actual joint...just the boots, clamps, c-clips and grease)?

Any tips or insight would be appreciated.

AandSC

Latest update.

Pulled the CV axle out. Here is the process:

Loosen wheel lug nuts
Jack car, put jack stands under it
Remove wheel
Loosen the two rear most muffler hangers
Remove the brace under the axle (2 bolts)
Remove the cotter pin and nut retainer from the end of the axle
Loosen the axle nut, but don't remove. Just loosen. Someone needs to hold the brake while you loosen this nut.
Remove the six hex head bolts and two retaining washers that hold the inboard CV joint to the differential
I had to put the wheel back on and use its leverage to break the cv joint free from the differential side shaft
Take wheel back off
Remove inner side of the axle from the differential
Remove axle nut
Pull axle out. It may take some "coaxing" to get the axle out

At this point I took the axle and my two new boots and clamps to a shop and had them replace the boots. Total cost with price of boot kits was less than $200.

Reinstalled axle in reverse of above. It took two hours to get the axle out as I had to learn as I went. Reinstallation only took about an hour.

I could not find a rebuilt axle anywhere, neither could the shop that did the boot replacements. If you own a 95-00 and see an axle out there somewhere you should buy it.

Will do a test drive tomorrow and report back.

AandSC

So, after a few hundred miles it turns out that the shop that replaced the boots screwed up the outboard CV Joint, which resulted in lots of grease splattered around the inside of the rim and suspension components. Ended up getting a junkyard axle for $50, that was in pretty good shape and put that on tonight. I'm getting pretty good at removing and replacing the axle. In the long run it would have been cheaper to do this from the beginning. I also bought an axle off eBay that looks pretty good as a backup. So now I have three axles to work with in the event of another failure.

valex

I have a 1999LS, bought a junk yard left axle couple years ago and installed it, sent my old one to get rebuilt to Cordone. Later a mechanic said that the junk yard axle is in good shape, but I already had installed the rebuilt one. So, rebuilding that axle may have been an unneccessary expense, but I have a spare axle I know is good

Buy the way, my old original axle was in good shape, the reason I was replacing it I meesed up the outside boot when working on suspension, made a little hole.