Rear diff leaking - pinion seal

[Matt]

That sure is an expensive risk.... glad its been working out for you though. Hopefully you got lucky and got the preload correct. If you start developing a humming noise in the rear I would recommend not letting it go too long. I've seen pinion bearings seized from too much pre-load and its not pretty. And it's always the same story "yeah its been making that noise for a while, i just thought it was the tires"

Gears and bearings are something i'm extremely careful with. And I will not install them on anyones vehicles except for mine just for the simple fact that it doesn't take much to screw it up, and when you do screw it up it's not cheap.

[07JeepXK]

Yeah I hear you. My friend who gave me a hand doing it has been doing pinion seals for 10 plus years now and hasnt had any problems. He told me it will be fine. If the rear goes then i'll just install a dana 44 that comes in the 2wd HEMI XK's along with an ARB locker!

Also I put over 25,000 miles on a year along with off roading. I think it would have failed by now. Who knows.

[Matt]

Ah... well that's a completely different story! Gears are an art form.... I'm sure your friend checked the torque based on his years of experience by way of "feel". The torque method is there for guys like us who don't do gears all the time.

Its kind of like re-packing hub bearings on a vehicle... it takes some experience to learn the proper "feel" when tightening up the assembly.

I wouldn't ever advise an inexperienced person to set pinion bearing preload by feel. But someone who's very experienced is a different story.