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I was changing my clutch fluid today and decided to look underneath to make sure my tranny was'nt leaking. As I looked at the drive shaft I noticed oil all over where the shaft and the rear end meet. I know leak is common around the pinion, but it looked like someone just splattered oil all over the place. No leak in the housing cover. What should I do at this point? I guess this explains some of the rear noises I've been hearing.
Maybe the fluid is coming out of the vent hole on the top of the rear? My car does this. Maybe the diff is overfilled?
It could be coming from the pinion seal or traveling up through the splines and past the pinion nut and the drive shaft is slinging it all over the place. I would have the pinion seal replaced (GM seal) and when its apart put a smear of silicone on the splines of the pinion flange and you be all set. No it's not hard if you know what you are doing, the biggest thing is to make sure you don't get the nut too tight or to loose because you will burn up a pinion bearing then your fucked.
Any write ups on doing that? Type of tools? I am no pro, but as long as I have instructions usually I can pull it off. What price range if a mechanic did it?
My shop would charge 1-1.5 hours at $85.00 an hour. I don't recommend doing it yourself if you have never done it before, like I said it's pretty important to get the preload exactly where it was or you could have bearing failure which would then be hundreds of dollars.
Stock rear? Its pretty common, my 12 bolt is doing the same thing. Its the pinion seal, and as you drive it throws oil everywhere. Its probably all over the bottom of your cab(body). IF you buy a rear gear kit(few hundred bucks) then buy the needed install kit.... it will come with that seal. Thats what Im doing. Killing two birds with one stone. I would pay someone to do it, its probably gonna be 130 bucks or so. Unless you have set up rear's before.... it can be a costly thing to tackle. Good luck