I have a leak at my oil seal on my front diff. To get at it requires removing the CV axle ( drivers side). I noticed one mechanic at the You Tube mechanics school recommends replacing the stub axle to have a non worn surface for the seal. That adds a couple hundred to the $15 seal repair. There’s over 250,000 miles on the diff. What say the 4x4 mechanics here. Can you get away with just the seal? Here are the parts from Rock Auto. Thanks
Diff oil seal for front CV axles on 3/4 ton Chevys
- Thread starter Snagglefoot
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Can you have the axle sleeved?. Or pound the seal in a tad more or less to have it ride on a fresh surface? 
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Those style seals spin inside themselves so the axle shaft shouldn’t have any wear. I would recommend getting the gm genuine seal because most of the aftermarket seals are designed wrong and leak soon after install atleast that’s my experience with the 8.25 front axle in my 2004 Silverado. There are some properly designed aftermarket seals but I just went for gm the last time I did those seals after several attempts with the wrong design aftermarket seals.
Did they not leak? My understanding is that these pretty much always leak, and just deal with it.
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They haven’t leaked since installing the gm seals and it’s been 10,000 miles.
See how the gm seal has double the sealing area compared to the aftermarket seal and it doesn’t have that air gap inside the seal. Maybe gm redesigned the seal at some point because of them leaking all the time. This is for the 8.25 axle, the 9.25 is a little different seal.
I picked up a seal at my GM dealer. Made in Brazil. Canadian part number shown.
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That’s a shame, mine were made in the US.
I know that SKF sells bearings made in Brazil. I noticed it years ago when I saw SKF bearing packs from several countries in one store. I was thinking it was strange seeing that. Here is one package. I wonder if SKF is making bearings for GM.
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Got a partial answer. SKF has been building bearings and seals in Brazil for a lot of years. I’ll bet those GM seals were built by SKF. As long as GM backs them, I’m not going to fight it.
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I did the front driver side diff seal on my Trailblazer in about 2013 at 130,000km. I think the seal was made in Brazil as well. Fast forward, 270,000km and its seaping again.
