Citizen Kane
Well-Known Member
I've had nothing but trouble with my pinion seal on my rear diff. When I originally got the vehicle there was a lot of play in the pinion and I discovered that the nut was loose. The seal was replaced a new Corteco one but this only lasted a couple of months but this was long enough for me to acquire a replacement second hand diff for rebuilding.
The rebuilt diff was fitted and ever since I seem to be replacing seals, sometimes they only lasted a year, some have gone for two years but eventually they all seem to leak. After the first one went I put it down to bad luck, when the second one went a decided to replace the comedy mud shield with a plastic unit that created a basic labyrinth to better protect the seal but the problem still persisted.
I did a bit of digging around and found a website that specialises in rebuilding and upgrading Land Rover diffs, seems I'm not the only one to suffer this problem and its quite common and the death of many units.
So it seems there is an alternative more modern seal, a Corteco FTC5258 fitted to some later Land Rovers. The seal appears to be a completely different design with more sealing lips and a different material, they also sell a new upgraded alloy mud shield as well. The pic shows both seals side by side with the later seal on the left.
The original seal has some kind of raised flange on the outer surface, I've always knocked these seals in so they were flush with the diff case. When I was reading about fitting this newer seal to Defender diffs the advise was to drive the seal into the housing until it bottomed out, when I took a few measurements on the Series I thought this was a bit too deep and the first lip of the seal wouldn't engage with the sealing face of the drive flange so I made a simple seal driver to locate the seal 6mm under flush.
Here's a few pics of the old seal and the new one being fitted.
Old Seal fitted flush to diff case.
New seal being fitted.
New seal in position.
Drive flange with plastic mud shield.
Only time will tell if this new seal solves the problem but I'm ever hopeful.
The rebuilt diff was fitted and ever since I seem to be replacing seals, sometimes they only lasted a year, some have gone for two years but eventually they all seem to leak. After the first one went I put it down to bad luck, when the second one went a decided to replace the comedy mud shield with a plastic unit that created a basic labyrinth to better protect the seal but the problem still persisted.
I did a bit of digging around and found a website that specialises in rebuilding and upgrading Land Rover diffs, seems I'm not the only one to suffer this problem and its quite common and the death of many units.
So it seems there is an alternative more modern seal, a Corteco FTC5258 fitted to some later Land Rovers. The seal appears to be a completely different design with more sealing lips and a different material, they also sell a new upgraded alloy mud shield as well. The pic shows both seals side by side with the later seal on the left.
The original seal has some kind of raised flange on the outer surface, I've always knocked these seals in so they were flush with the diff case. When I was reading about fitting this newer seal to Defender diffs the advise was to drive the seal into the housing until it bottomed out, when I took a few measurements on the Series I thought this was a bit too deep and the first lip of the seal wouldn't engage with the sealing face of the drive flange so I made a simple seal driver to locate the seal 6mm under flush.
Here's a few pics of the old seal and the new one being fitted.
Old Seal fitted flush to diff case.
New seal being fitted.
New seal in position.
Drive flange with plastic mud shield.
Only time will tell if this new seal solves the problem but I'm ever hopeful.
