My jeep got flooded during the hurricane - water got in through the diff, mixed in with fluids, created a milkshake of crap that started leaking out of the rear axles. Took out the axles, replaced bearings, oil seal and retainer - going to reinstall but noticed there are seals on the inside of the axel tubes. Everything I’ve been reading about Dana 35 (no c clip) - there are no inner seals. Here is a picture of the driver side inside the axel tube.What is this? On the passenger side, there is the same thing and it was rubber on the one side. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Help With 87 Wrangler YJ Dana 35 Rear Axles
- Thread starter Eva
- Start date
Here is a picture of the passenger side, inside the axle tube. On the backside of whatever this seal is, there’s rubber (no rubber on the driver side in other picture). Do I need to take this out as well and replace? What are these?
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Are those the old races still in the housing? I’d pull those to get a better look at whatever those seal things are in the pic. Pretty sure those are not factory but there’s not a lot of info out there on those early 87-89 non c-clip axles.
Not sure if you are still out there but did you get this issue resolved. I just pulled my axles (1987 yj Dana 35 n/clip) and discovered the same thing, nothing in the manual that I can find. Would appreciate any response.
I finally found a manual that explains how this works. The 1987-1989 D35 with bolt in axles uses greased bearings, not oiled. So there is an inner oil seal, and then all of the axle parts (axle retainer place, outer seal, wheel bearing/race, bearing retainer collar).
For whatever reason, Jeep decided to run greased bearings instead of oiled, and so they created a spot at the end of the axle tube for inner seals to go, just inward of all the axle shaft hardware. So you need to pick up some inner seals. Fluid still runs down the tubes, it just stops at the inner seals.
This is not properly documented in the 87-90 parts manual, the only place I could find it is the 87-88 FSM, which I believe is not on this forum and I found elsewhere. Check out the pages from the 87-88 YJ FSM for more info.
Thanks for getting back so quick and including the FSM info. This all makes sense with what I am looking at. It felt like a seal but I didn't want to start hammering on something and not be able to replace it. Thanks again!
Gilaguy23
YJ Addict
Thats is how the D44 rear in m 65 CJ was set up. There was zerk fittings where the bearing is to grease them as well.
Odd. They must not have realized yet that gear lube works better as a high speed tapered axle bearing grease. Once they switched to the 90 axle with roller bearings it went to gear lube. And then future D44’s and such that had bolt in axles still used gear lube. F’n Jeep.
Gilaguy23
YJ Addict
