Hi all,

While overhauling rear brakes including e-brake, I got my rear axle shafts out and was advised to replace the seals on them. Those seals were indeed in not-so-great condition, my new CRD has 122K miles on it. These seals have metal outer "shells" which are supposed to be pressed into the bore in the rear axle body. Problem is the portion of the bore facing outside has enormous amount of rust on it.

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AreyBg-PH49Rlgogc9XJl1yrTlJR

I can probably wrestle the old seals out, but I am concerned that while pressing new ones in I may damage their outer metal shell with those rust deposits. It even looks like one would need some semblance of honing tool to remove all this rust, make the surface smooth and restore the original diameter. Will try rust remover tomorrow, but would appreciate any hints.

Thanks in advance!
A.

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2006 Liberty CRD Limited, GDE ECO tune, Provent 200, 2-stage Weeks kit, ARP studs,
Aussie fan shroud, Trans drain plug

I did mine about 6 months ago. They didn't look as bad as yours, but they were pretty rusty too. The new ones have been just fine, so far.

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2006 Liberty CRD.

Get yourself a seal puller. They might still give you trouble but all that crud will come off with the old seal and should leave a clean surface for the new one. There might be a chance it leaves a small outer ring, if that's the case just run some Emory cloth lightly around it.

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2005 Crd Silver Limited- arps, rockers, 7v etechno's, egr deleted, v6 airbox, metal cac's. Yeti's stage 2 tune. Euro TC, Ram tcm, pml transmission pan, facet lift pump

Looks pretty normal. Pop a rag in there and clean off what you can around the seal with a rotary wire brush on drill or grinder. Like JWS says things will look a lot better when you get the old seals out.

Ok, thanks for great advice and encouragement! Got myself a seal puller (took two visits to local Autozone until I came across the guy who actually knew what it was ) and got the old seals out today . To my surprise it turned out that the outer metal shells of the old seals got a T-shape lip on them. Thus all the crud that scared me and which I spent several hours removing was actually on the outer side of the seals - what a shame! What set me off though was the fact that the new seals I got from Advance Auto, while being the right size, did not have the said lip. Now I finally understand that this lip may in fact provide extra protection for the seal bore against rust. Ordered new set of seals with the lip from Rock Auto:

http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php ... 25&jsn=381

(sorry, it was the last set )

Thanks again!
Alex

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2006 Liberty CRD Limited, GDE ECO tune, Provent 200, 2-stage Weeks kit, ARP studs,
Aussie fan shroud, Trans drain plug