Drive oil in Gimbal Boot
 

I removed my port B1 yesterday (prior to removing the engines again!) from my Sonic & had drive oil (about a pint or so) run out on the floor from the gimbal boot. It was pooled up in the gimbal boot clear to the floor of the gimbal helmet.I have never seen this before. I can see no obvious leak source from anywhere but the entire input shaft & u-joints were soaked in drive oil. I can only suspect a leaking input shaft seal leaking into the gimbal...... any other ideas???

NO,,,that should be it .

Usually the input shaft seal will cause this, but if the oring in front of the pinion retainer nut is bad.. that could cause it also. I would do a presure test, 10-15lbs and see if it holds over nite.. if not then soap it up and look for the leak..

Hope that helps.
Dick

As Dick said, its either the shaft seal or the O ring that goes on the nut. If you are taking it apart, just replace both of them. Be aware, there are 2 lip seals for different year drives, old style and new style. If you have the older style XR, I would suggest updating the nut and seal to the newer style. The old style nut, didnt support the seal as well, and were prone to having the seal push out through the nut. To replace the lip seal, you will have to take the driveshaft apart and reset the bearing preload. Dont forget to time the gears when re-installing the shaft.

That's what I thought...... I will just replace both seals. It seems the best & only thing to do!!

Thanks for the opinions.

Make sure to check for wear on the input shaft too. Mine had some pretty good wear where the shaft goes through the seal due to the previous owner running engines with the drives trimmed out too much.

Had to replace the yoke assembly in my case...and its sold as a single unit from Merc as I recall.

Yeh, gotta check everything while in there.... good thing I have spare yokes, shafts, knuckles, etc. in the shop. You never know when you are gonna need it!!
Thanks
George