The rear axle seal is leaking on the driver side of my 91 GTA. What all is involved in splitting the axle and what can I expect inside? Tried searching the forums but could not find what I was looking for. Any advice/pics of inside the pumpkin?

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tran...ing-axles.html
Read this.

 

Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for!

 

Is your rear a 9 or 10 bolt? The axle seals are very different and the procedure is different as well.

 

No clue. Whatever a 91 GTA came with stock. She's an auto 5.7.

 

Wasn't '90 the last year of the 9 bolt?

Just look under the car and count the number of bolts in the cover. If it has 10 bolts then follow the instructions in the link that I posted. If it has 9 bolts then it's going to be completely different.

 

10 bolt. Born 3/90 but being a 91 model year she has the 10. And thank you very much

 

That is a good question, I am not sure when they stopped.
But either way I would have the OP look under his car as it could have been changed.

 

Yup, would have COME WITH a 10-bolt. Note that I'm not saying that's what IT HAS; only, that's what IT CAME WITH.

Assuming that it still is a 10-bolt, the reason the seal leaks in the first place, is because the bearing is bad, allowing the axle to flop around inside the tube so much that the seal can't stay in contact with it. The seal basically never "goes bad" all on its own. And then, since the bearing is bad, and the axle itself IS the bearing inner race, the axle is also bad. Bottom line being, you have less than a 10% chance of changing the bearing and fixing the leak any more than temporarily, if at all; a few weeks at best.

Since it's SO EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZYYY to change the bearings and seals, and while doing so, to lay the old fornicated axles off to the side and slide in new ones in their place, I'd STRONGLY recommend you have a set of NEW axles (NOT random used ones off the classifieds or something) on hand at the moment of truth.

 

Thanks for the info sofakingdom. She still has her 10 bolt and I will look into axles too. Limited budget.

 

89.

JamesC

 

I feel ya on the limited budget, but you gotta pay to play. Sofa is right, you're probably going to need axles, if you fix it right the first time, you'll save money in the long run.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/su...model/firebird

I have these axles from summit in my car, they are reasonably priced and include new studs, bearings & seals.

 

Phew...not gonna be able to swing that for the axles. Gonna do the bearing saver. Prob gonna do a rear end swap. What would be yalls recommendation?

 

I recommend that you DO NOT use the axle savers. They are nothing but trouble and you will be right back in there doing it all over again soon.

 

8,8 Ford 99 to 04 Mustang, get brackets from Currie,

however a 10 bolt out of a 98up v8 4th gen will bolt in and get you a torsen lsd to boot.

 

X2.

JamesC

 

well how much time will the axle savers buy me? ive got less than 20hrs a week and barely over min wage. meanwhile i will save up and hunt down the 8,8 rear. def will not be able to afford a new rear at $1,200

 

x 1000

Recommendation would be, BUY THE AXLES.

There's ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING ELSE you can do, that will be ANYWHERE NEAR as cheeeeeeep, that will also fix the problem.

Don't whine about "not able to swing". Besides all that usual poor-mouthing being obnoxious as all hell to those of us who are trying to help you out, there is no other option ANYWHERE NEAR that price that will last longer than about far enough to get backed out of the garage. That's about how long those "savers" seem to last: just long enough for the customer's check to clear. Don't shoot yourself in the foot that way. If there WAS any other way, we'd have told you about it instead of / in addition to the RIGHT way.

At this point, either you want to fix your car, or you don't. If you do, deal with it. If you don't, ... you do the math.

Sometimes the way that looks "expensive" is ACTUALLY the cheeeeeeeeeeeeepest way to get stuff done.

 

The axle savers are hard to install, won't last long, hard to remove and in the end you will have to go ahead and buy the axles and correct bearings anyway.

There is a small chance that your axles are not bad. You won't know until you get them out.

 

An axle swap isn't going to be cheaper than $250 for a rear shipped. Even if you can get a rear for cheaper than that, your going to go thru $50 worth of PB blaster and Oxygen/Acetylene to remove all those nuts & bolts that have been there for 23 years. And if you start braking stuff trying to get the axle in and out, it'll get more expensive fast.

Option one: Buy the axles, fix it the correct way, not have to worry about it for years to come.

Option two: Go to a garage sale, buy a bicycle, get huge leg muscles peddling around.

Option three: Do the axle saver bullshit, drive to the corner gas station, see a trail of gear oil from the garage to the gas station, then see option two.

 

I know that i's easy for us to sit back and say "spend the money on the new axles" when we are not having to pay for them. I also understand that money is tight and sometimes you have to do things that you wouldn't normally do. The axle saver bearings seem like a cheap way out, but it's not a good fix. Maybe they will get you buy for a while, but if it was me I would just drive it like it is for now and save the money for the axles and correct bearings. Like I said above, there is a small chance that your axles are not bad, so you might be able to just replace the bearings and seals and use your axles again. You won't know until you remove them and take a look.

 

Depending on the severity of the leak this could be an option, but if it's leaking like a garden hose and you run it out of fluid and fry the pinion and carrier bearings you're going to spend twice as much on a full bearing set and labor to have someone put them in. You need special tools and skills to set up a ring & pinion, it is one of the few things that I haven't been brave enough to attempt yet, and when I had my axle set up it was $200 just for labor, and that was a cheap price because I had my friends shop do it.

Is this your only car OP?

 

I ended up swapping the rear 2 weeks later.
Thanks for the input guys. Leak was about a 3 out of 10 with 10 being a flood. Went with the axle saver anyways and the leak stopped. Held for about 300miles in my car and another 1000 in my dads. At the time it was my only car. Rear is still sitting without leaking from the axle saver, however, opening the pumpkin 4 out of 10 bolts snapped on the bottom half. So I boogered it up because I couldn't drill out the broke bolts, and its always leaked out of the pumpkin I ended up finding a used 9 bolt 3.27 with spohn lcas for $200 picked up and swapped that in. I put a beating on this rear.