LittleHoe

hey all,

here's a little background info. I just bought the truck, its a 2003 2500 quad cab, long box, 4x4. 5 speed with the cummins.

So I picked the truck up from out of province and needed to do an inspection on it, brought it in and they said upper ball joints needed to be done so I said okay do it up...

The truck had no leaks, drove straight as an arrow but I needed to get the ball joints done so it would pass safety at the dealership.

I got the truck back and now the front axle seal is leaking a bit on the drivers side. When I saw the puddle i got concerned so i checked the level in the diff and the fluid was coming out the fill hole as soon as I opened it up. Now after some searching I saw it mentioned that overfilling the diff could cause the seals to leak. Is that true? and will it stop leaking if I let some of the excess fluid out? It has the AAM diff in it. Oh and they check the diffs fluid levels when they do the safety so its possible they topped it up thinking it was low....


Also now the truck pulls like a bugger to the right on the highway... could the alignment be out or do you guys think I would need an offset upper ball joint to remedy the situation... I know the dealership said they did the alignment as part of the safety but I am quickly losing faith in this dealership....

bradler

bet they buggered up your axle seal when re-installing the inner axle shafts. on my aam 9.25 the fill level is slightly below the hole yours might be a little overfull but if its leaking that much i still bet they wasted a seal. alignment sounds off you wouldn't need off-set ball joints unless the camber is off. those axle seals are a pain gotta pull diff and drive them from the inside i would get them to fix it...

LittleHoe

so would they have had to pull the axles to do the upper ball joint?

bradler

yep gotta pull the hubs and axle shafts to be able to get press into knuckle for ball joints. if they didn't really clean out the axle tubes dirt can get on axle shafts when re-installing and trash seals. or if they weren't carefull about supporting axle shafts and guiding them in the splines can slice the seals too...

bradler

ohh and that reminds me the hubs can be a nightmare to get off and they could of damaged you hub if they used a big puller. could be part of pulling right problem?

BLACKBEAR

Take it back and tell then to redo ther job but this time do it right!! At no cost to you !! == good luck ==

BigIron70

Most likely the fluid leaked into axle tube when they pulled the axle out if it was over filled. I usually drain the fluid out of diff before pulling the axle out of the housing. If you don't then the oil will leak over the seal and into the axle tube and eventually leak out. Or they could have damaged the seal when reinstalling. If that be the case then both axles will need to be pulled and both seals replaced. The seals are installed from inside the diff housing using a special tool. The carrier or case will then need to be removed to install seals. You could have a tire pull try crossing tires in front to see if pull goes to opposite side.

LittleHoe

so the dealership told me they didn't need to remove the axles to do the upper ball joints... they just disconnect the hubs and let the axles sit in there???? Anyways, they told me it was probably just oil that had leaked into the tubes while the axles were unsupported.... Well 2500km road trip later and there is still a puddle everywhere i stopped at so i called them up today and the truck is going back in to get that seal fixed... hopefully i won't be paying for it but we will see...

HVYHLR6North

Sorry for your luck. You have to pull the axle shaft out in order to have enough clearance to remove and install the bj. It pushes out the bottom and pulls in from the bottom. By not supporting the axle in the tube, the seal could be damaged, more than likely they had the shaft out and damaged the seal upon installation. Sorry to say, but I think you may not have needed upper ball joints, they are supposed to have about 5/16 up and down play. Chances are there wasn't any laterall movement because all the weight is on the bottom bj's. Don't give up the fight, the shop was in the wrong!

Raspy

It certainly seems they damaged the axle seal while doing the BJs. And yes, you do pull the axles to do them. Once you are that far in they just slide right out. The trick is getting them back in carefully to not damage the seals.

On some ball joints, like the Moogs, the upper is not a ball joint, but a shaft in a sleeve that is free to move up and down. The bottom is the true ball joint and it controls the up and down movement. It doesn't make sense to replace the uppers and not the lowers, if that's what they did.

Look in the 2003-2007 drivetrain section for the thread I started on "Moog ball joint pictures" about a week ago. I took some apart, took pix and showed the design and failure points.

Best thing is to get new joints that are not Dodge and are not Moog.