Any ideas how long or difficult or any specialty tools required to replace inner seal on a '98 rockwell 26,000 lb rear end.
Which inner seal are you taking about ? What type of truck is this axle in ? If its a wheelseal its not too bad pull the hub and wheel as a assembly pull out the old seal inspect the wheelbearings and put it back together. When installing the hub and wheels back on don't rip the seal on the threads on the spindle or you will be cursing.
If you are talking about the yoke seal, sometimes it can be a bear. My nut was on so tight, that it had to be cut off. It wouldn't budge even when heated and using a 6 foot long cheater bar. The nut takes a 2 1/4 in. socket. Once the nut is off the seal replacement is pretty straight forward.
The leak is dripping on the brake pads on the passenger side, front axle. I think I may have to remove the wheels and drum to get in there.
You have a wheel seal leak which is no big deal to fix but now you need to replace your brake shoes they are probably saturated in gear oil. You can burn the oil out if the shoes have lots of lining left. You need to borrow a friends oven bake the shoes till the oil burns off. Brake shoes are cheap you might aswell replace them with new. Its amazing how cheap brake parts are for trucks compared to automotive. You really need to do the job on a concrete floor. The first step remove the wheels if you want you don't need to if you have a wheel dolly. Remove the axle shaft, remove the axle nuts, pull the hub assemby off spindle. Replace brake shoes and wash the crap out of the brake drum. Inspect wheel bearings for black spots and pits. If they look good put them back reinstall new wheel seal make sure you drive it in square you get it crooked and gets tweaked. Check spindle where the seal rides check for burrs or grouves. If there is a burr it will rip the new seal and start leaking again. When you have the wheel off check the brake drum mesurement if the drum is getting close to over spec replace it with a new drum they are cheap too. Also when the wheel is off check the S cam and S cam bushings. If you got grease oozing out clean it up because many people over grease the tube that the S cam shaft goes through. Okay next problem what does the truck have for wheels if you have dayton or stud pilot wheels its not so bad to get them off. You got hub pilot wheels you will need a good impact wrench to get the lug nuts loose. You should have the proper size axle nut socket NO USING A COLD CHISEL. Man that frustrates me to no end when you pull the axle shaft on a truck and somebody has tightened the nuts with a cold chisel now you can't get a socket over the nut. You can never get a accurate bearing preload using a cold chisel. Most axle adjusting nuts are tighten it up tight then back it off 1/4 to 1/2 a turn. I do it by feel you don't want alot of preload and you don't want it too loose. Too tight you burn up the bearings too loose the bearings wobble and hammer. Good Luck if you don't feel confident doing it yourself a shop can do that pretty quick.
Thanks for the thourough tips. I got er done, As always once you get after it, it falls into order. You pretty near explained it to the "t". I wound up replacing both front rear axle brake pads sets. Checked the rears they were near new. some service routine the previous orwner had . Thanks again!!
Doing brakes is one of the first things I learned pulling wrenches. Its a horrible job your back gets sore you get covered in brake dust. The real surprising thing is how cheap brake parts for a class 8 truck is. In most cases brake parts are cheaper than they are for my F-450. Good to hear you got it done. A little frustrating to see gear oil soaked into perfectly good brake shoes :Banghead Back when I was 17 years old I did the rear brakes on my 77 F-350 dually with the old Dana 70 inboard drums. I changed the shoes but never changed the wheel seals. Week later one of them started to leak saturated the new shoes a few choice words came out of my mouth :cussing
I would much rather do a brake job on a big truck than a car or light truck any day. So much easier.