axle oil

S

scout man

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I just pulled the hub off of my axle to fix the seal which was leaking. Took care of that problem and now I am getting ready to drain what oil is left and put fresh oil in. I was looking at the differential and I cant find a fill plug, I found one on the cover but it isn't even half way up. I May be completely wrong but that just doesn't make much sense to me and do I just remove the cover to drain the old oil out? Its a Scout 80 with a Dana 44 tapered shafts with a powr lok differential.
 
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Yeah man, you got it. You pull the diff cover to drain the gear lube. You'll want to get some brake clean to hose out the housing as best you can. Wedge a rag up in there and muck it out as best as you can. Expect it to be very nasty inside. It probably hasn't been changed since your Dad was in diapers. Perhaps you've seen higher fill plug locations on other axles, but the location of the fill plug is standard for your Dana 44 differential. I recommend using a cheapo hand transfer pump for easiest filling. Be sure to add some limited slip additive to.
 
The wheel bearings should be packed with grease and serviced at regular intervals. The gear lube is only meant to lubricate the differential gears.
 
My axle wheel bearing are lubed by the diff oil. The plug is high enough as you were leaking oil. To really clean out the old oil you need to let it drip for a day. I just loosen the pan bolts/cover enough to get it to start draining and then come back the next day to finish. If your in a hurry have lot of paper towels and rags around. I find it all drains out over night and the real seal process is not bad. Hopefully oil comes out vs mud and water. There is a breath tube on the top of the axle and these can let mud and water in if you ever drive in mud and water puddle that are deeper then the vent.
 
There's some confusion building here. Semi-floater/full floater...that isn't the determining factor for how the wheel bearings receive lubrication. What matters is whether or not the axle in question has inner grease seals in place. With the exception of sii d44 axles produced after a certain date in 1977, there should be inner seals in place which are meant to prevent gear lube from contacting the wheel bearing surface. When oil has migrated past the wheel bearings and formed a visible leak on the brake backing plate, that means the inner seal on that side has failed and should be replaced. There is no grease fitting for the wheel bearings. They must be pulled, inspected and re-packed with grease or replaced as needed. In the case of a semi-floater d44 such as the op has, accessing the wheel bearing involves pulling the axle shaft from the housing. The bearing is pressed onto the shaft and requires a tremendous amount of pulling force in order to separate it from the shaft. In dealing with revival of old iron which has not seen routine maintenance in god knows how long, the safe play is to replace the long neglected bearings with new ones. With the axle shafts removed and new bearings on hand, a machine shop can pull off the old and press on the new. This is an oversimplification of the process. You should consult the service manual for your Scout which covers your particular axle version before attempting any part of this.
 
If I May, I would like to clear up a procedure.

Scout man's rig has the tapered end axle. Most times the wheel bearing does need pressed off, be careful and make sure the machinist as a soft landing for the axle shaft. The inner ring of the bearing has a tapered bore to fit the tapered shaft end, so it May take a press to bump it; but if one ain't careful the shaft will go bouncing along the shop floor.

There are no clinch rings with these bearings, they just snap on in place and the taper holds. The manual is very clear with pictures.

They are huge bearings for the load, and spendy. If the races are not scored or severely pitted, chances are you might be able to reuse them. The deal breaker is whether or not the axle housing for them is shot and allowing the outer race to turn.

It was work, but that's how they were maintained with re-greasing every 15 or 20k miles, though in the day for most folks that was a year's worth.
 
Ok I found where in my service manual it talks about this and it says every 48,000 miles they need to be taken off and maintained. So how easy is it to remove the axle shaft and bearing?
 
My frame of reference is with the sii axles, which as greg pointed out aren't exactly the same as the earlier Scout axles. For me, removing the axle shafts was no problem. Once I had all the break hardware, the backing plate, and the retaining plate out of the way, all I did was put the drum on inside out with a couple lug nuts threaded in place to use as a makeshift slide hammer. A couple good pops had both axle shafts out in short order. I don't know if the procedure is any different for your axle shafts. As for the bearings, its like he and I both noted. You won't get them separated in your driveway if they need to be. Your ray of hope is that they are apparently a much heartier bearing than the comparable item on a Scout II axle shaft. So with any luck all you'll have to do is clean them up really well, re-pack and reinstall.
 
It's very easy to pull the axle shafts. You dun the hard part getting the hubs off. The bearing retainer, backing plate, shims, are removed. Then the axle is removed. Sometimes they're a bit stuck so like trevor suggested with a brake drum loosely nutted to a loosely placed hub and jerk it out. I welded a nut for my slide hammer to an axle nut and with it on a few light jerks the axles came out.

There is a thrust button in the differential's carrier you will have to watch out for. That's the one thing that is not in the manual on what to look for or how to get back in if they fall out.

So ya'll giv my warm reegards to jerry thair trevor.
 
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