Fresh oil showing up between the wheels on the drive axel.

johns4104s · May 22, 2009, 05:17:25 AM

My MCI 9 Is showing fresh oil between the drive Axel tyres. No oil showing on the inside tyre, or on the break shoes. I assume a seal leak? Or could it be the Axel to hub gasket.The wheel has a cover so I cannot see the end of the axle until I pull the wheels.
If its a seal are they normally available from truck shops or are they hard to find?
When pulling the axle is it better to drain the oil or is it possible to jack the axle leaning it to keep the oil in?

Thanks

John

RickB · May 22, 2009, 05:20:26 AM

Just had a tag seal and a pinion seal done on my bus and the tag axle seal leaked all over my brakes. The pinion seal leaked all over the airbags and the differential housing. are you sure it is not your pinion seal???

JackConrad · May 22, 2009, 06:05:05 AM

John,
When you say it is leaking between the drive axle tires, do you mean between the left duals and the right duals or between the 2 tires on one end of the axle? Jack

johns4104s · May 22, 2009, 06:11:04 AM

Jack,

Between the two tyres on the end of the Axel. I only noticed it by looking up from the pit though the holes in the wheel. Not a lot but you can see its new and very wet.

Thanks

John

JackConrad · May 22, 2009, 06:23:57 AM

John,
The wheel covers that I am familiar with can be removed by removing every other wheel nut. Look closely at the cover and I think you will see that every other nut has a hole in the wheel cover that is large enough to slip over the nut. Maybe you will luck out and only need an axle gasket or maybe just tighten the drain plug in the end of the axle (if your axle is so equipped). Jack

johns4104s · May 22, 2009, 06:26:18 AM

Thanks Jack I will try that today

John

bobofthenorth · May 22, 2009, 07:13:57 AM

I'm with Jack in thinking you may get lucky and just have an axle gasket problem. To answer your other question, no, you don't have to drain the diff to work on an axle. There shouldn't be much oil runs out when you pull the axle but you should check the level after you are done anyway.

PP · May 22, 2009, 08:43:27 AM

John, I don't want to be the harbinger of bad news, but when I discovered fresh oil between the drive tires it was the wheel seal. I did both sides and had to add about a quart to bring the level back up when I was done. I hope you get lucky, and it's just the axle end gasket leaking back to the hub because of the cover. That is a simple fix that doesn't usually require removing the wheels. There are some good threads in the archives here that will walk you through a seal replacement however, if that's what it takes. I especially liked the greased board (hiway sign worked excellent) for slipping off the wheels without removing the lugnuts. No lifting involved!

Good Luck, Will

buswarrior · May 22, 2009, 09:39:08 AM

Not a bad idea to wonder how old your diff/axle lube is.

You can be sure that the last commercial owner didn't bother changing it for preventive maintenance...

This would be a good time to drain and re-fill with fresh lube. One bucket will leave you some top up for later axle seal maintenance.

And to ponder going synthetic?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

PP · May 22, 2009, 12:59:54 PM

BW- At how many miles would you recommend a complete oil change on the differential? My bus records show mine is getting close to 80K since they changed out the original oil.
Thanks, Will

JohnEd · May 22, 2009, 06:21:13 PM

Go with full synthetic.

John

Tom Y · May 22, 2009, 06:53:31 PM

John, I just did one of mine. A CR 45010 seal, yours should be the same. Tom Y

buswarrior · May 26, 2009, 11:19:41 AM

Re: how often to change the differential lube.

Hadn't thought too much about this before, so hauled out the Maintenance Manual.

The MCI manual recommends an initial change of the factory fill between 1000 and 3000 miles, which sounds good for 1975, but then it goes on to recommend the differential be drained, flushed and filled every 750 hours or 25 000 miles! 18 quarts of gear oil at a pop?
And the transmission and the wheel bearings at the same time.

WOW? That seems a bit too frequent?

Off the top of my head, I can't remember the recommended interval for the modern highway trucks, but it is a LOT further than the MCI recommendation.

Ok, who can resolve this bit of disturbing research?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

bobofthenorth · May 26, 2009, 04:18:43 PM

24000 miles according to the book for the frenchybus. I dumped it last week (about 50,000 miles and 4 years). I dumped it because there was an alarming growth of filings on the magnet on the drain plug, not because I had read the book - just did that now out of curiosity. I hope the fuzzy magnet wasn't a harbinger of bad things to come. I suppose my 10 speed is long overdue as well.

gyrocrasher · May 26, 2009, 06:55:38 PM

Quote from: buswarrior on May 26, 2009, 11:19:41 AM

Off the top of my head, I can't remember the recommended interval for the modern highway trucks, but it is a LOT further than the MCI recommendation.

97 International 9400 (twin screw,OTR tractor) =every 100K Miles. I guess oil and or components have vastly improved since a lot of these busses were built. Mitch