Put new rear shoes, drums and wheel cylinders on my truck last weekend. When I had it apart, I noticed that my axle seals were leaking. So I took it apart and put new axle seals in from Advanced Autoparts, but turns out, when you spend $4.50 a seal, then don't last. Mine didn't even last but 5 miles and I started to get axle lube onto my brand new brake shoes and drums ....

So fast forward a few days, I take the truck to work and put some super premo ACDelco seals on it. Axle seals, pinion seals and ACDelco silicone sealant for the diff cover ... now that the axle isn't leaking gear lube anymore, turns out I also disturbed the brake lines a little too much when I changed out my wheel cylinders ... so now I have brake fluid leaking through pin holes in the rusty brake lines on the axle too. It just never ends ... Tune in next week for new brake line install! lol

 

I feel your pain
I'm doing the very same thing with my truck... Only difference after I changed my rear brakes. I only needed to replace one rear axle seal.
Like you, a few days later it started leaking again.

 

bummer about what happened, but just curious, did you wet the seal when putting it on? it's common for other's not to wet the seal and what happens is the seal burns out, be sure the seal is wet and axel. A lesson I learn a while back when I had my 84 ford ranger

 

Yessir I used wheel bearing grease on the seals before install, and I was super careful with the axles sliding them into the housing and getting them all setup on the bearing and spider gears. I guess it's just dumb luck ... I didn't soak them in gear lube or anything, but I've always just used wheel bearing grease and it's worked out pretty good for me in the past. Worked for my new ACDelco axle seals at least. She ain't leakin no more lol ... well just break fluid. And since I was still trying to break in my new shoes, the drums got warped from the gear lube creating "hot" and "cold" spots on the drums. I think I might machine my old drums and put them on instead of these new ones. We'll see- I'm going to machine one pair of them and hope for the best!

 

Well my truck took a turn for the worst two days ago ... had extended crank times for the first day or so, then yesterday it was a crank no start. Under further investigation, I found that the ignition switch had take gone out, but someone had bypassed the bad switch by jumping the 4x4 fuse to the PCM fuse on the IP fuse block ....... so the wire fell out on me and I had no idea what was going on there so I tossed the wire out. I fixed the bad ignition switch though, and tightened the T27 torx screw that holds my shifter lever on. It wasn't a bad job, but it took some pretty odd tools in order to replace ... E5 internal torx socket, and I believe a few regular torx sockets.

It just never ends with this truck. Sooner or later I'm gonna get everything replaced.

 

Wow that was amazing you were able to figure out that jumper wire fix... even after you tossed the wire out.
Glad to hear you were able to get her back up and running.

 

Well no sooner did I replace my ignition switch did my turn signals go out on me. So I started off with replacing my turn signal switch just for good measure (Plus I wanted a nice clean snazzy multifunction switch ), and went into it. As it turns out, my addon 4 pin trailer hitch connector I added in a few weeks prior had gotten water in the cover of the connector and was shorting out adding lots of resistance. The added resistance blew THREE 20 amp fuses and one 30 amp big guy under the hood. I removed my cheap $15 "plug and play" trailer connector and replaced my fuses and I'm ready to go ....

This truck is just silly sometimes.

 

96 chevy z71 rebuilt tranny neutrals out in overdrive not sure about drive didn't want to drive anymore. doin the same thing before rebuild could it be the brain or some other electrical problem

 

So last week my inside driver's door handle snapped off - like almost every other GMT400 will experience at some point in its life span. So I took care of that, and then the week after, the passenger's door handle did the exact same thing .... the only problem with that, is because the driver's door lock cylinder became detached from the lock rod, I cannot unlock my driver's door using my key. So for the time being, I have been unlocking the truck from the passenger door. But when my passenger inside door handle broke, the little stub left was constantly pushing the rod "open" so that I couldn't unlock my passenger door either ... so this created a scenario which caused much grief ...

Suffice to say, I replaced both inside door handles, ordered a new lock pawl for the new lock cylinder I put in the driver's door, and I HOPE that I can finally get that damn lock rod to stay attached to the driver's door lock cylinder ... I absolutely hate working on chevy doors. Hate it. After I get the driver's door all squared away, I'll attempt to change the lock cylinder in the passenger door too, so that the keys match.

Perhaps before I do all this, I'll get a keyless entry system for it ...

 

Took out the 3 inch body lift and this coming weekend my suspension drop kit will be in, I'll post some before and after pictures