I work at a stealership, and they nissan axles are around $600 each! We usually end up putting aftermarket axles in customers cars, at their request, to save them money.. Come on lets face it, who the hell wants to pay $600 for an axle??
My opinion on the topic of whether or not to replace the tranny side seals is this: if u are doing the job yourself, and the seals are not leaking, leave them alone.. if you are having the job done at a shop, have them do them! The seals themselves should be less than $10 each, and if they are already in there, whats a couple of seals to a mechanic, right? Thats what they get paid to do, so let them do them.. less worries for later.. and YOU dont have to touch a DAMN THING!!

 

DJ42o96maX, what kind of tool do you use to take out the seal???

 

What is the downside with not replacing a leaking tranny seal? I was told about 6 months ago that my left tranny seal was seeping. This was shortly after I had the manual transaxle gear oil replaced. I have since put about 3k miles on the car and the seeping has grown to a leak, however, the fluid level is still full.

Could I just monitor the fluid level? I am thinking about putting 5 ounces of AutoRX in the transaxle and seeing if that restores the leaking seal. Does anyone have any experience with using AutoRX in transaxles. I am currently running it through my crankcase prior to switching to synthetic engine oil.

 

I too would like to know a verdict on that product. I have the same thing going on but mine leaks. I'm thinking I should just wait until the VQ35 swap and fix the seals then. I generally audit all of the fluids & tunes on a weekly basis anyways.

 

Well I believe I need a new oil seal that's why I ordered one today at Nissan. I am having a bit of difficulty getting the driver side axle into the transmission. Is there any special thing you have to do or is the reason I can't get it in is because I need a new oil seal? I bought axles from autozone.

I have been fussing with this thing for 3 weeks now and its starting to become a pain in the ***.

Does autozone have any rental tools to pull out the seal and replace it?

 

the cv boots on my car were broken for a long time and i went to the dealer, they said it's ok to only fix the cv boots, but that still costs a lot.

 

[QUOTE=4DRSpeed]there any special thing you have to do or is the reason I can't get it in is because I need a new oil seal? I bought axles from autozone.
QUOTE]

Ouch..another Autozone axle. I know a few people that have had real issues even getting the right damn axle in the first place from AZ. IMO, it is well worth the few extra dollars to get a Raxles Axle. They are superior to anything else you can get for them on the market. I don't believe that part was opinion. Take those AZ's back and give Marty a call.

www.raxles.com



I had to tap the axle in gently with a 2x4 piece and rubber mallot. Best of Luck to ya

 

How much do the Raxles go for? I heard about $170? If so I don't have that kind of cash at the moment. I got the passenger axle on fine, its this damn driver side. I'm beginning to think maybe AZ didn't even give me the right axle as well.

I have also tried to tapping in the axle doesn't seem to want to slide all the way in. Sounds like I have gotten the wrong axle?

 

dam i am so lost.......help .......i now the boot is ripped and alot of grease is out, i don't want to mess with the tranny....the guy at autozone told me to replace the whole axle, that it would be cheaper than just fixing the boot, now my question is should i replace the axle or the boot, and if i replace the axle do they have to mess with the trannismission seal? and wat is the tranmission seal?

 

The transmission seal is another matter. Don't concern yourself about it.

I suggest you read the stickies and buy a Haynes manual.

 

Why would you spend $50? to fix a seal that costs $5?? And I doubt that stuff will fix that seal.

 

I suspected that it might not fix the tranny seal, but I do know it fixes engine seals. Parts are more expensive in Canada than the US and half a bottle of AutoRX costs about Cdn$15 as I have a local source.

Just thought I'd ask the question.

Now perhaps you could give me your opinion on just monitoring the leaky tranny seal.

 

Um I'd just buy the inexpensive seal and change it. Would take me about an 1 hour if I took my time.

The Auto RX is a good idea to try to stop a rear main seal or maybe a front crank seal leak. As those seals are MUCH harder to get to. The front seal might be easy though.

Monitor the leak?? I dunno. But I'd get tired of the oily spot in my garage after a while.

 

Thanks.....

 

Well took a trip to AutoZone it appears they gave me a LSD axle instead of one without. I am pretty pissed right now, because even when I went in to have them check they still never asked me if it had LSD or not, I had to tell him after he punched it in with LSD. It amazes me what idiots these stores hire.

 

Sometimes idiots require a little guidance and supervision.

 

I just picked up the new differential seal from the dealership. Not a very deep seal,
about 3/8" deep, maybe 2" O.D., 5/8" shaft I.D. Appears that I can just pry
it out. Hope I can.

 

Small one like that is fairly easy to pry out with a big screwdriver. But invest in a cheapo seal puller. Will look like a handle with two pointy hooks in each end. Makes seal pulling 10x easier and SAFER. Scratch a seal surface = leaks

 

I just measured the seal, instead of using my eyes. Shaft I.D. is a little more than 1.5" and the seal depth is around 3/8" at one part and around 1/2" at another part. O.D. is closer to 3"
Jeff, where can I get a seal puller? I looked at autozone, which was staffed by a kid who appeared to be a high school dropout, who couldn't help.
I called Nissan techmate tools, and the price of the puller, which they call
a "bearing race puller", is $600 (this is not a typo or misprint).
As id30s confirmed before, the seal installer, I believe is:
http://www.nissantechmate.com/detail.aspx?id=105
But since this probably costs a gozillion bucks, this is not what you want.
Seal was $7.74 list at the local stealership.

 

Ah ignore those idiots. Most auto places should have them. Look for this. Or maybe order one from Harbor Freight etc....

 

Thanks.
I'll stop at a different auto parts store and
ask them

 

What tool do you use to install the new seal with? The one that is pictured in the FSM?

 

According to I30ds, it is this tool :
http://www.nissantechmate.com/detail.aspx?id=105 , however, I would go to the contact tab on their website and call them and check. That is if you want to pay some ungodly price for the seal installer. From the looks of
it, I'm going to try a rubber hammer with about the same diameter, and tap it gently.

 

Guys, I just had this job done. Here's the lowdown on price:
Parts from CarQuest - Axles $57.06 each plus $114.13 core each
Labor at Midas - $75 labor per axle installed

They can do the job in 1/4 of the time and not pi*s away my time and hard labor. Just don't do what I did and not get them for ABS brakes. Here the shop had the axle out when they told me I had axles for non-ABS brakes. But the problem being that my car DOES have ABS. I was ticked cause it was 3pm on a saturday with only one hour before closing. Granted it was my fault cause I got the wrong ones but I was hot! Fortunately CarQuest was just down the road so I ran there to get them. What a nightmare.

My advice, change the whole axle and pay someone to do it! You will spend just as much time just replacing the CV Boot and perhaps a little less $$ but think of this job long term. Plus if the boots have been ripped for a while the whole thing really needs to be replaced. Once crap gets in there, it's all over. My car has 216K so I figured it wouldn't hurt with the new axle. I'm not made of $$ but I love no car payment and want this baby to take me many more miles.

 

I just checked my brakes last night because I'm about to go on road trip next week. And upon removal of the wheels I got that wonderful green crap all over my hands. No clicking yet though.

Anyway, has anybody tried the ebay ones. It's like $50/$80 not including shipping. I got a quote from raxles for about $270 for both and I'm not to thrilled with that price tag.

 

hey wat is the core that cost u the 114.13, its been less than 500 mile the boot been cracked...

 

The core is for each axle so that you return them so they can rebuild them. A slight incentive.

 

Hey... Me again... Yup.. My boot is cracked too.. but so far, it seems like its not as expensive to fix as other things.. such as my struts.. which will be fixed on Thursday...But keep posting people. I like to read more about other people with the same issues.. :-)

 

Thats just evil






j/k

 

Well the max has been evil to my wallet.. Someone should make a smily handing over cash..

 

I have a 97 Maxima SE. When ordering the left CV shaft would I want the with or without locking differential?

thanks in advance

 

without. Good ole open diff

 

Perfect, thanks for fast reply.

 

no prob

 

Well, I went outside in a perfect New England day to change my right driveaxle on my 96 GLE automatic. The axle shaft bolt came off easily as I used my spare tire on the wheel to help. The spare's rim has a large opening in the center of the wheel which exposes the whole axle bolt.
I kept the tire on the ground to hold the axle from moving while I cracked the bolt with a breaker bar inside a long piece of pipe.
However, when removing the right inner joint section of the axle, there is an extra support bracket that fits in an extra support bearing. I unbolted the
3 bolts on the bracket. The bracket uses a flanged press fit with a 1'' deep inner sleeve of the inner joint housing sitting inside the bearing. I tried cracking it open with a cold chisel,
but got nowhere. I sprayed some PB blaster in the seam. Then I used my
floor jack and used a small piece of wood between the jack pallet and the flange and gently tried to lift the outer flange. This I think helped slightly, as I have a small break in the seam.
I gave up for the evening as it was getting dark.

Has anyone found a successful technique for breaking this bugger loose???
Fortunately I was in a calm mood today, otherwise I'd be exhausting my
4 letter word vocabulary!!!

 

bump. really good thread

 

Here's the rest of the story....
Almost yanked car off jackstands

 

You can easily change the axle or just the boot without removing the inner cv. All you gotta do is seperate the strut from the steering knuckle, remove the axle nut, and I also always seperate the tierod to give me more working room. After just take a small brass hammer and knock the axle out off the inner cv. Do whatever you gotta do (slide small clamp then new boot onto inner cv then slide on larger clamp then clean old grease off old axle or put on new axle). You can replace the retaining ring if you choose but I recommend just reusing the old one since the axle is a real PIA to get back on with a new stretched out retaining ring on there. You may have to stick a screwdriver in there to push part of the retaining ring into the axle to help get it started before using a rubber mallet and tapping the axle back on completely. After that make sure you got all your new grease in the bearings in the axle and boot then clamp everything together. Hook the rest of the car back up and you're good to go. Took me like 30 min to do all the above but I have airtools

 

I got a pair of rebuilt axles from Autozone to replace the "clonkers" I have. The drivers side one from Autozone had damaged splines but it was also missing the dynamic balancer or rubber dongle thing that is on my factory axle. They will ship another tomorrow.
Do I need this and does this balancer do anything?
Did your replacement axles have this rubber thing in the middle of your drivers side axle?