It looks as though the passenger side bearing on my Rear Axle assembly has gone out on me. The seal has broken too and some fluid leaked out. Where do I go from here? Can a regular mechanic fix this, or do I need to take it to a speciality shop?

My mustang is a '69 with a 302 and an 8" rear. I'd be interested in upgrading to a 9" with traction-loc, but perhaps that's way way more expensive than I should be thinking about. What would be the approximate cost for simply replacing the bearing, or possible both bearings? Should I have the whole assembly re-built, differential and all while I'm at it? I've owned the car for 8 years and haven't done anything with the rear-end and don't know what the maintainence history is on it.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

a regular mech. can do that for you, I would only do the side that is bad because they don't usally go bad. The seals do go bad more but they are easy for you to change and cost more in labor at a shop to change since the seal is only a $2 part. The bearing is pressed it thats the only resson to take somewhere.

 

How do I do the seal. It is my understanding that the seal is actually on the other side of the bearing, and therefore isn't accessible unless the bearing is removed. Is this incorrect?

 

Why do you want to "upgrade" to a 9inch (just being sarcastic)? Unless you plan on 400+hp, sticky tires and driving on dragstrips that really hooks, stick with the 8inch. It can take quite an abusing, and has less parasitic loss.The weak point is the stock gear case and pinion support. To answer your questions:

I would replace both seals (this you can do yourself), and replace the bearings while your at it, but you need special tools or any regular mechanic.

If you want different gearing and traction lock, I would recomend you buy a complete third member from f.ex. Currie Enterprices. Easy to install yourself

 

I just did this a few weeks ago. I think the total cost was about $80 this included:

2 new bearing (old ones cut off and new ones pressed on)

2 new seals

new 3rd member gasket

2 bottles of gear lube

and renting a slide hammer ($8)

I did everything except cutting the old bearing off and pressing the new ones on. The mechanic that does some of my work recommended a machine shop to do this, he said he would have to send them out to this guy anyway because he didn't have the press. The slide hammer makes pulling the axles and seals very easy. In all the longest part of the job was waiting for the bearings to get swapped. This is problably only an hour or so job not including the time for the machine shop to do the bearings.

 

Replacing the axel bearing isnt too bad to do at home, jack it up and place jack stands, remove wheels and slide drums off. There is a plate with four bolts behind the axel flange, these are removed using the hole in the axel flange from the front, once the plate is unbloted, a good way to remove the axel if you dont have access to a slide hammer is to take a four way lug wrench, place the x part of the four way behind the axel flange and pop it tword you, a couple of times is usually suffecent to bring the axel out. Then just take it to a machine shop to get the old bearing pressed off and the new one on. Before putting it back use a hook of some type to pull the seal out of the housing and tap the new one in, use a block of wood or very large socket to drive the new seal in place, use care to make sure it goes in evenly and dont dent it up. This doesnt take too long, and the parts are pretty inexpensive. If you take it to a shop expect to pay around $100.00 in labor cost as most shops get 40.00 to 50.00 an hour, and this is usually about a two hour labor job.

 

your going to want to do this before fluid gets on your brake pads...that will give you some trouble cruzing down the road.