I repacked the wheel bearings today and replaced the grease seals. Good thing too. Sand was everywhere, and one of my seals was failing.

Sand in the calipers, sand behind the rotor...packed in there.

I also pulled the rear drums. More sand. Blew all that out.

I pulled the diff cover and changed the gear oil too. I got a little water in past the axle seals too.

All from this:

I pulled the caps off my hubs and didnt see any water in them, so decided to wait a while with mine.

The axle to spindle seals you are using, do they actually seal out water or are they more of just a dust boot? The ones I put on my truck form a pretty good seal and work quite well for keeping out water too.

Could have been worse.

quote:

Originally posted by Desert Rat:
I repacked the wheel bearings today and replaced the grease seals. Good thing too. Sand was everywhere, and one of my seals was failing.

Sand in the calipers, sand behind the rotor...packed in there.
I also pulled the rear drums. More sand. Blew all that out.

I pulled the diff cover and changed the gear oil too. I got a little water in past the axle seals too.

That's one thing I can say I have been pretty impressed by on my Nissan, the seals for those front hubs are top-notch design and keep all the crud out. I repack as a precaution and never as a necessity. I know a couple people that have dunked their D44s and have had major issues with bearings and seals. Anyone know if there exists a higher-quality seal kit to help prevent this?

quote:

Originally posted by datz510:
I pulled the caps off my hubs and didnt see any water in them, so decided to wait a while with mine.

The axle to spindle seals you are using, do they actually seal out water or are they more of just a dust boot? The ones I put on my truck form a pretty good seal and work quite well for keeping out water too.

I was referring to the grease seals that hold the inner bearing in on the rotor/hub assembly - the $5 ones you replace each time you repack bearings.

I know you replaced the bearing grease seals, but what I am asking about are the seals on your axle shafts that keep water out of the stub shaft to spindle junction.

I'm just curious as to how the water/sand found its way in.

I pulled my rotors and repacked my bearings this weekend too.

No sand or water, didn't replace the seals because I didn't pull the rear bearing out.

Everything looked good, but I greased the shizzle out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by datz510:
I know you replaced the bearing grease seals, but what I am asking about are the seals on your axle shafts that keep water out of the stub shaft to spindle junction.

I'm just curious as to how the water/sand found its way in.

I didn't have sand in the bearings yet, but would have shortly past the grease seals I'd mentioned.

The water gets in through the locking hub. That's not sealed...there's an Oring around the outer Warn hub case where it slides into the hub assembly, but the handle that locks the hub - water can get into that.

The grease wasn't bad and didn't show much in the way of signs it had a lot of water in it, but the sand packed in behind the rotor would have worked its way into my inner bearings shortly, as it was already eating up that grease seal.