After weeks of procrastinating, I’m finally going to fix the oil seal in my rear differential tomorrow. I’ve had to fill it up with oil twice in the past few weeks, but I borrowed some torque wrenches, and I’m going to buy the oil seal tomorrow, then start tearing things apart when I get off work. While I’ve got the driveline disconnected, I’m going to rebuild the u-joints, ’cause I get a really bad vibration when I get up around 70 mph.
My wife and I are going to Salt Lake next weekend to spend the night at a friend’s house and just hang out. We might buy a cab-over camper while we’re up there, and we’re definitely going to buy a new bed. So I have to fix my truck if I don’t want my differential to lock up under the strain of all the added weight–actually, it would probably lock up just by driving that far, even without that much weight.
I just hope I don’t screw anything up. I have no clue what the inner workings of a differential are like, and my repair manual is pretty vague, and doesn’t have any pictures or diagrams. I guess the worst that can happen is I can bend the seal, or crush it too far, and I’d just have to drop $20 on another one and try again.