Well I got tired of torturing myself with the rear shocks and started on the fronts. I had a bad cv boot so I got a new axle for the passenger side. I replaced the transmission seal, as recommended, but ran into a problem. I expected the seal to seat, as I tapped it in, when it got in the proper distance. But to my surprise the damned seal went into the transmission another 1/4" or so past flush, before it seated. Is this too far? Will it leak now? I'd like to fix this now before I put in my 5 quarts of redline and leak it all over the garage floor.

 

It's seated properly.

 

Oh Good. You've seen the same thing and not had it leak? I realized looking at the book that the original seal appears to have a flange around it that stops the seal at flush with the transmission face. I imagine Nissan's using the same part for multiple cars now and didn't mention that you must stop at flush with our cars.

 

You should try to note how the seal is before you take it off. I haven't been down there for some time but I think 1/4" might be a tad much. It might still seal though. I don't know.

 

If its a manual tranny and it's racked up a few thousands of miles then indeed it will leak. thoose darn spacers inside are worthless if not measured proprely. But 1/4 might be alot. harbor freight sells a tranny seal remover to back it out so you wont damage the seal. Or even a side slider hammer will work.

 

Yes, I took pictures of it before I removed the old one, however I didn't expect the seal to push in too far. I didn't see, at that angle, that the hole was deeper than the seal and I expected the seal to just seat. I've put in many seals and never had this problem.

 

if the seal is straight and not crooked it will seal no matter how far in it is

 

Thanks for the input. I checked with a good local dealer, Campbell Nelson, and they concurred that it should still seal, so I'm letting it ride.

 

At worst, the bearing will wear the seal at the outer inside part of the lip for a few miles if you did seat it a little too far, but when we dropped my tranny a few days ago the seal was seated further than flush and there were no leakage problems. I took a look at the new axle seals that I had got and the inside of the outer ring might wear a little, but you have no worries if it's a bit too tight. The spring inside the inner ring of the seal won't contact the bearing and that's the important part.

 

Great. The best part is that I don't have to yank that axle again and try to get at those support bearing bolts again. Now I just have to tighten that spindle nut back to ~200 ft-lbs, Oh Boy.

 

Yeah, tell me about it. We snapped a breaker bar's Grade 8 pin while getting those bad boys loose.

 

I went out and got a 36mm impact wrench socket, after hearing how hard it was to get off, and I had to crank up the setting on the wrench and the air pressure, and it still took 30 seconds of banging away at it to get it to start to loosen.

 

Same thing happened to me on a mx-6, i finally got me a BIG impact wrech with a 3/4 socket and i also tricked my compressor to charge 150 psi instead of the usual 125. but it worked

 

Well, I finished this job. The car handles well now and no leaks from the seal. As much of a pain as the rear struts were, that's how easy the front ones were. It's like the front shocks were designed to fit this car. ;-\

These KYB shocks do ride very similar to the original shocks the car came with.

About the only problem was the fact that I had to compress the inner 3 coils of the spring until they just about touched and even then the upper spring saddle or mount was barely loose from the spring.

 

Here's some fabd seal persuasion for those pesky bastards...

 

another thread today reminded me of you. still leak-free?

http://forums.maxima.org/showpost.ph...50&postcount=7 when he says not to seat it too far, etc

 

Yes, So far so good. Luckily the section on the axle that the seal seals against is flat and smooth for several inches there allowing the seal to be anywhere along it and still seat properly.