Now it's got at least another year's life left, when i took one of the rear brake drums off, the oil seal in the end of the rear axle is seeping oil onto the back plate. How big a job is it to replace the oil seal?
Would it need a slide hammer to get the half shaft out?
Would it be easier to swap the rear axle then?
I had a seal changed on the rear axle many years ago.
But it was the bearing that had gone, so both bearing and seal had to be changed.
A quick job for a garage with the right tools, and have done the job before.
At the time, it was before I knew about this club, so I had it done by a Nissan dealer.
Rustic
I did this job a short while ago, and like you I was quite daunted by it, but in reality it was not too bad. I didn't require any special tools to strip the brakes down to the back plates, or remove the half shafts, which pulled out effortlessly.
Notwithstanding that I have modestly well equipped tool kit for your average bodger, the most specialist item I used was a long breaker bar to loosen some of the larger bolts/nuts.
When I did it, changed the brake shoes and wheel cylinders as a matter of course whilst I had it all apart. Once again this was relatively straight forward, although I did take the precaution of taking lots of photos beforehand. The oil seals were a bit of a scrabble to remove, as they were in there quite tight, but brave and judicious use of a hammer and screwdriver, taking special care not too damage any mating faces got them out. I pressed the new ones in using a large socket and gentle hammering.
The bit I couldn't do was the wheel bearings. The half shaft on mine has an ABS rotor, which looks quite delicate (and expensive) so I took the disassembled half shafts to my local garage, where they replaced the bearings for me (I wimped out really).
There is a very good download on the site for this job, with a great tip for pulling the shafts if in tight, although mine came out very easily by hand.
This is what the halfshafts look like removed, with the back plates and ABS rotors still in-situ.
<a href="http://s1074.photobucket.com/user/nalaeloc/media/IMG_1236_zps0285f062.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w418/nalaeloc/IMG_1236_zps0285f062.jpg" border="0" alt="Removed Halfshafts photo IMG_1236_zps0285f062.jpg"/></a>
Only you know your mechanical capability. Mine is quite poor, but I am keen to learn more about my vehicle, and how it goes together (with the help of the great contributors on this forum of course).
Good Luck whatever route you choose.
Regards
Alan
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