Manual transmission driveshaft oil seals

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:15 pm

I have a leaking driveshaft oil seal on one side of my transmission (in addition to my leaking 4wd shifter oil seal).

I can pull the drive shaft in about 10 minutes, but I'm not sure about replacing the actual seal. I imagine I could just pry the old one out, but I have had trouble before getting new oil seals back in. Sometimes I end up bending them or damaging the rubber part of the oil seal.

Any tricks I should know about before I attempt this?

arbskynxnex · Post by **arbskynxnex** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:56 pm

Well in my experience in replacing oil seals on washing machines, we always put the seal in at an angle, so one end was already set and the rest was out. After that we place a piece of wood against part of the seal and slowly tapped it with a hammer, moving the wood around as we got the seal in place.

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:13 pm

Thats what I tried with my steering knuckle oil seals, but because they were so big, they ended up just bending. It probably will work well with the trans oil seals though because they are so small. Thanks for the help.

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:09 pm

I will have to do these seals very soon as well, when I put the new transmission in. I know from experience that old ones tend to leak if reused. Depending on how soon you need yours done, I could make you a seal driver to get them in nice and easy. I now have the privelage of using a machine shop at work and I can make stuff like that in a snap.

I had that problem putting the dust covers back into my steering knuckles - all 3 times I tried to do it. The actual wheel bearing seals were a bit easier. I made some seal drivers out of plastic for those front wheel bearing seals, and if I recall correctly one of them worked very well, and the other was the wrong size so I ended up using a hammer and screwdriver instead. That's an ugly method but it doesn't affect the quality of the seal as long as you're careful.

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:51 pm

Thanks for the offer of use of the seal driver if you make one! That would be awesome. I'm not sure when I will do mine, it depends on how quickly it's loosing oil. I need to pull the filler plug and see how much oil I have lost. If I've lost lots then I'll do it fairly soon. Otherwise I'll put it off for a bit. I will be going on a couple of long trips in early fall, and will definitely want to have it done by then.

About the wheel bearing oil seals: I had the identical problems to you. The wheel bearing seals went ok, but the dust covers were a nightmare. And now I need to do it all over again for my 86

(although they are not nearly in as bad a shape as my 87's were).

Sometimes old cars really begin to get to you. It's one thing after another; they are never finished. (Dreaming of a low km mint 91 AE95 Corolla Alltrac Wagon now...

... with front, centre and rear Cusco LSDs...and a 300hp turbo 20v 4ag...

)

sacwac · Post by **sacwac** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 12:00 am

I'm going to replace those seals very soon now, as I just received my replacement differential, and can't wait to put the tranny back together, and into the car.

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 12:21 pm

Cool! Let us know how it goes.

I think I might do mine this weekend actually. I can hear my trans getting louder which means I have lost a fair amount of oil since I last topped it up. Filling the trans with oil all the time is such a pain in the ass I think I'll just do the seal asap.

sacwac · Post by **sacwac** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:10 pm

So, have you found seals for the diff? If so, where did you get them?

The closest thing I found were these off of partsamerica.com

Beck/Arnley 0523559
Beck/Arnley 0523525

But, they look more like the rubber dust cover things, and not the actual oil seals. I dunno though.

I just made my own gaskets for the diff front cover, and trann/diff!!! I didn't want to even bother going to the dealer, those guys (stevens creek toyota) are a bunch of a**holes. They were easy enough to cut out. Trickiest part was using a razor to get the old gasket off in one piece to use as a template.

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:34 am

I actually have not bought the seals yet. I was just going to get them from Toyota though. There is an individual I know at the dealership here who is really good to deal with (all though most of them are aholes.)

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:40 pm

$9.90CAD each at the dealer here. (~7.00USD).

tercel4wdrules · Post by **tercel4wdrules** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:40 pm

GTSSportCoupe wrote: Sometimes old cars really begin to get to you. It's one thing after another; they are never finished. (Dreaming of a low km mint 91 AE95 Corolla Alltrac Wagon now... ... with front, centre and rear Cusco LSDs...and a 300hp turbo 20v 4ag... )

Do you want that in SR5 trim and with power on everything?

B) I would like one of those but they are very rare here in LA (I've only encountered 3 here).

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:46 pm

Yup, fully loaded. There are tons of them around here. Priced between $2000-6000USD.

Check out this link to see one I like (although I'd scrap the ricey look and just keep the performance parts - first thing to go would be those huge heavy ass rims).<a href='http://www.turbocorolla.com/cars/larsc.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.turbocorolla.com/cars/larsc.htm</a>

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:57 pm

That ae95 will also be old some day. Then you will have to get something newer and worse looking.

tercel4wdrules · Post by **tercel4wdrules** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:28 pm

Yes I agree, I'd get rid of those weird and dumb looking rims and put some original ones or at least some other Toyota ones that match so that it looks original. When you replace the rims it kind of takes away the car's personality or at least something else so that it doesn't seem the same. I just wish that older, nicer looking cars didn't go out of fashion as they do go so quickly when someone introduces a different, uglier looking car. Something like that. I just wish there were more of those All-Tracs as there are plenty of Tercel 4WD's here. Then you will have the best of both worlds- All-Wheel-Drive and 4WD on the Tercel. Wouldn't that be great?

takza · Post by **takza** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:16 pm

GTSSportCoupe wrote: I think I might do mine this weekend actually. I can hear my trans getting louder which means I have lost a fair amount of oil since I last topped it up. Filling the trans with oil all the time is such a pain in the ass I think I'll just do the seal asap.

I replaced an axle seal. I think I just tapped it in with a hammer since I was too lazy to make some kind of driver.

My method is to try to get the seal to go in as much as possible without tilting it sideways any...you will probably have a slight amount of this...but then you need to watch for it and start tapping on the high side till it levels out.

A small piece of wood can spread the load and help keep the seal straight....DON'T hammer directly on the seal!

If you get them going in crooked...the metal will bend and you might never get it in.....or it will leak on the outside rim. Stop when its flush with the outside...not sure if this seal opening has a backing ridge or not.

Letting the trans go till it's noisy isn't so good......

I don't think that the 4WD linkage link will ever get fixed on mine...I'm going to re-wrap the shaft next to the trans with 15-20 wraps of sewing thread to see if I can make a seal for it...already have about 6-7 wraps on there...can't say it helped much.

I put the front on ramps and check the oil right at the plug next to the axle shaft on the driver's side. Since this plug is approx 1/2" lower than the one you are supposed to use and the car is on on ramps at the front...it should be fairly accurate.