Ok so I've been doing some research within the site but i havent found a direct answer. I have a 96 SE 5sp and a few months ago i notice that i started leaking gear oil from the RF axle on the inner side going into the tranny. I replaced the seal but problem persisted and even got a little worse, but i also tapped the seal in until it wouldnt go any further, did i push it in too far? well a week ago i replaced the seal yet again in hopes that the first one was just a bad one but when i refilled the tranny, gear oil proceeded to leak out at a pretty fast rate not even 30 seconds after i started filling the tranny. As with the first seal i put in, i tapped this one in until it wouldnt go in any further. I have seen a few posts saying that i need to drop the tranny cus I may have a bad diff. carrier bearing. so my question is, is it the seal being pushed in too far or is it the diff. bearing?

thanks, Marcus

 

How many miles are on your car? I would have thought you would have encountered the differential carrier bearing problem long before now.


I had to have my tranny rebuilt last summer because of the infamous differential carrier bearing problem. Despite replacling the seal, I had a leak for about 3 years from the driver's side but just kept on adding gear oil. Finally the leak just got to be too much so I had all the bearings and seals replaced and replaced the clutch components at the same time, given the tranny was already out. At the time I had about 79,000 miles on the car but the problem started at about 60,000 miles as is generally the case.

 

Wow, I would have thought this would be a high mileage problem. well i bought the car in 07 and at the time the guy i bought it from said odometer stopped working 3 years earlier and it stopped at 155,555 so its been 6 years since its worked so I would say i definatley have well over 200K on it. But this last time i had the axle out i made sure to move it up and down to check for excessive play to see if the bearings were bad but it was pretty tight. That said, I still think the bearing might be the problem I am just trying to avoid dropping the tranny cus i need a car, but if enough people think its the bearing rather than the seal then i guess ill have no choice.

 

If it is the differential carrier bearing problem and there is very little play, you can drive the car for quite awhile without doing anything other than adding GL4 gear oil from time to time.

 

+1

I had the differential bearing issue on my last 5spd max. U can drive on it for a while. Yeah jus keep adding fluid till u change it.

 

luckily i work at a shop so fluid won't be a problem at least till the boss catches on lol but i think im gonna drop the transmission pretty soon thanks for the help guys

 

I can't stress the importance enough of using only GL4 gear oil. Either 75w90 or 80w90 will do. This gear oil is not the easiest to come by. Do not use GL5 as it will mess with the brash bushings in the transmission. I repeat DO NOT USE GL5 GEAR OIL!