Defender Axle Oil Seals

[Troll Hunter]

Can somebody who understands oil seals please tell me what the following seals are supposed to do, ie keep differential oil, or water, out of wheel bearings, and the correct orientation, ie lip towards differential or lip towards wheel.

I note that the same bearing, part no. RTC3429, is used for both the inner and outer on both axles, but the seal arrangements are different, there’s no outer seal on the front axle, hence my question.

PartNo.

Location on axle

LR Parts Manual Page no.

Item No.

Function

571718

Front axle, on half-shaft inboard of CV joint

414

7

FRC3099

Front axle, stub axle

420

2

FRC8221

Front axle, in-board of inner wheel bearing

420

8

FRC8221

Rear axle, in-board of inner wheel bearing

427

6

FRC8222

Rear axle, out-board of outer wheel bearing

427

13

Many thanks in advance,

Mike

[Snagger]

The early axles have wet hubs, so the diff oil can get into the hubs via the half shafts. The bearings are greased on assembly, but the hub seal, drive flange gasket and plastic centre cone all keep the oil in and will be wet. Later axles (300Tdi+) have a seal inside the stub axle that runs on a raised seal land on the half shaft, keeping oil in the axle case and out of the hub. This is a backwards step as it starves the half shaft and drive flange splines of lubrication and the wheel bearings rely solely on the grease applied in assembly, which eventually dries out. My recommendation is to remove or wreck that stub axle seal and use RTV sealant when fitting the centre cone to mimic the earlier spec.

[Troll Hunter]

Apologies, all. My OP had a nice table in it, but when it was loaded it somehow lost its formatting resulting in the scrambled mess that appears above.

Mike