GMT800 Left Front Axle Seal Tips

[Anak]

I don't know how much of this may apply to the RS axle seal, but these three things made the LS axle seal a breeze.

1: There is no need to remove the axle at the spindle side of the equation. Adequate access can be had from just removing the tire and the LS sway bar end link. With the end link out of the way there will be access for your arm. The axle, when disconnected from the stub flange will swing down out of the way as well.

2: A seal remover with an adjustable head (able to be fixed at 45 degrees) is the ticket to getting the seal out with the above descibed access.

3: Getting the stub shaft out of the differential is a matter of gravity, not force. The stub shaft is retained by a floating ring. No matter how hard you hit the flange the axle is not coming out unless that ring is perfectly centered. When the ring is perfectly centered the axle will come out with minimal force. Knowing that gravity is what you are fighting with, don't bother hitting the flange a second time without rotating it. There are six equally spaced bosses around the perimeter of the flange. I rotated the flange alternately skipping 1 and 2 bosses (thus 120 degrees, then 180 degrees). It took less than a dozen tries to get the stub axle to come loose from the differential. Just a matter of several minutes, not the 15 minutes that I have seen others report.