Well on my passed roadtrip I discovered a leaking rear axle seal. Enough to flood the rear brake and rendering it useless. Not fun when towing a trailer. Is there a writeup on how to swap the seals? Should I do the rear bearings as well? Its an 01 but has rear drums. Where can you get these spedi sleeves I keep reading about. I didnt find much on changing rear seals on a D70 either.

 

get a good quality seal, speedy sleeve only needed if there is a deep groove in axel surface, bearings its your call if to replace or not, my experience is if you can adjust them, they are still good, or if there is visiable wear indications (flat spots on rollers or metal flaking off) then replace them

pretty straight forward to replace, I like to pack the bearings in grease before instal, because bearings can/will fail before oil makes it into the cavity. packing them ensures the bearings will not fail because of lub shortages, edventually the gear oil will wash away the grease. and will harm nothing

or you can jack up each side of the truck and allow the oil to run into each bearing cavity.

the nut and locking wedge are very expensive from the dealer, 80$ if I remember right, you can reuse just dont put the wedge in the same spot as it was orginally.

also if brakes are soaked in oil and still have plenty lining you can attempt washing them off with brake clean, after it has dried completely, and NO vapour or brake clean is present a propane torch applied to the lining will wick any oil trapped in the lining to the surface, if none wicks up, likely the shoes will be good for continued use, if too soaked the oil will come to the surface and cause the brakes to grab/ stick, in that case you would need to replace the shoes

 

Got some bad news today and have to make another roadtrip to fl. Haven't fix the axle seals. How are the old seals pulled out and replaced? I need to b on the road before Monday. If I isn't too hard I will do it as long as any special tools are avail at autozone for rentin.

 

Get it done at a garage and get that issue off your mind. The cost of properlly done job is soon forgetten.

 

I agree. Unfortunately events aligned to prevent that so I had no choice. Actually pretty easy. I hate drum brakes. Those were and cotinue to be a pain. Rear disc swap is on the wish list. Had no issues. So now after all is done I am gonna due the other side and refill with clean fresh oil.

 

I used to dislike my rear drums, but I starting to warm up to them (200,000kms later) if you keep them adjusted properly, that is crank the star wheel till they lock up, then back them off till you have a slight drag. need to use a screwdriver to push the adjusting arm away from the star wheel so they can be backed off.
if the rears wont drag on a gravel road, and they were adjusted properly, you might need to look at the GM wheel cyl upgrade and/or lengthen the prop rod so that there is more force to apply the rears,

with my 3rd gen front brakes and gm wheel cyl/adjusted rod, I can stand my truck on its nose, it will flat out stop on a dime