Trouble with axle seal 710453

[techweenie]

I'm refreshing the front end of my 94 explorer, and running into trouble with the "inner" axle shaft oil seal, part number 710453. The new seals are significantly taller than the original seals, and don't seat all the way down on the axle shaft, preventing me from installing the c clip to hold the axle in place. I wound up cutting the excess off one seal, but that exposes the internal metal ring and it will probably corrode and fail very quickly. Was there a design change to the stub shafts recently that isn't documented anywhere? I cannot find a seal with the shorter height the originals have. I'm wondering if new stub shafts will accommodate the taller seals. Or do I need to use the rebuild kit SBK4? That is a completely different design than what my truck has though.

 

[BKennedy]

Are you talking about the seals that look like this?

 

[techweenie]

No, that seal works fine, and is a different part number.

It's this one

 

[roscoe 0202]

push on the inside of the outer u-joint had to do that on the older broncos too
roscoe

 

[techweenie]

Would that not cause premature wear of the seal? Doesn't seem like it should be smashed in there so hard.

 

[Roadrunner777]

It took me quite a lot of effort to get the C-clip on after rebuilding the fronts. I also thought something was wrong, but in the end, I got the clips on and everything has worked great for 5+ years, and lots of 4x4 time.