Final drive leak....
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 11:26 am
Hi folks,
my Toronado restauration is comming to an end but the first test drives showed some troubles here and there. I sorted out most of them but the final drive is causing a headache. When the tranny and final drive were removed I removed the cover and cleaned the the inside. There was a very thick brown "something" inside. It was flowing like hot honey... ok I cleaned it, removed the left and right flange and the left and right oil seal. Also the double oil seal to the tranny on the pinion gear was renewed. The vent in the left flange was cleaned and checked.
The new seals were ordered at Applied airfilters and everything they sent me was fitting as it should. The left and right oil seals were replaced and the corresponding fit on the flanges cleaned and inspected. everything was a straightforward repair.
But... why is there always that "but" ???
After driving the car the left oil seal was leaking badly. I used 90W mineral gear, 4,5 pints = 2,12l as stated in the manual. I checked the level and it was at the lower part of the fill hole.
Last week I decided to work that out, removed the cover again and built a double layer seal with an additional vent path in it, which ends in a small hole near the upper bolt in the cover's flange.
Again filled to the inspection hole with gear oil and...again leaking, even out of the vent hole. I removed a pint of oil ( about 3 pints left in the final drive) and then the leakage was a lot less, the vent hole stayed dry. In my opinion the 4,5 pints and the inspection hole above the axis of the ring gear is quite a lot of oil when modern 90W gear oil is used. I can't remember a differential with such a high fill level. The differentials are splash lubricated and as long as a good third of the ring gear is under oil that works fine and every bearing inside gets its oil.
So are there any ideas out there? In one manual I read about an oil seal with vent holes in it.. they had to be positionerd to the top.. but I guess with our kind of oil that would have resulted in a very bad leak ..
Harald
my Toronado restauration is comming to an end but the first test drives showed some troubles here and there. I sorted out most of them but the final drive is causing a headache. When the tranny and final drive were removed I removed the cover and cleaned the the inside. There was a very thick brown "something" inside. It was flowing like hot honey... ok I cleaned it, removed the left and right flange and the left and right oil seal. Also the double oil seal to the tranny on the pinion gear was renewed. The vent in the left flange was cleaned and checked.
The new seals were ordered at Applied airfilters and everything they sent me was fitting as it should. The left and right oil seals were replaced and the corresponding fit on the flanges cleaned and inspected. everything was a straightforward repair.
But... why is there always that "but" ???
After driving the car the left oil seal was leaking badly. I used 90W mineral gear, 4,5 pints = 2,12l as stated in the manual. I checked the level and it was at the lower part of the fill hole.
Last week I decided to work that out, removed the cover again and built a double layer seal with an additional vent path in it, which ends in a small hole near the upper bolt in the cover's flange.
Again filled to the inspection hole with gear oil and...again leaking, even out of the vent hole. I removed a pint of oil ( about 3 pints left in the final drive) and then the leakage was a lot less, the vent hole stayed dry. In my opinion the 4,5 pints and the inspection hole above the axis of the ring gear is quite a lot of oil when modern 90W gear oil is used. I can't remember a differential with such a high fill level. The differentials are splash lubricated and as long as a good third of the ring gear is under oil that works fine and every bearing inside gets its oil.
So are there any ideas out there? In one manual I read about an oil seal with vent holes in it.. they had to be positionerd to the top.. but I guess with our kind of oil that would have resulted in a very bad leak ..
Harald