’95 Civic Axle Seal Leak Cause Follow-Up Questions. Thanks!

Hi, Perpetually Dirty ETCG Fans!

Last Fall I posted an appeal for assistance in stopping my 1995 Civic LX’s persistent axle seal leaks.

https://www.ericthecarguy.com/kunena/8-Service-and-Repair-Questions-Answered-Here/66408-leaks-95-civic-axle-seals-or-bearings

I tend to be a bit verbose, so I probably buried some essential points. I’m appreciative of the answers I received, but for the most part they mirrored what I’d said I had already done or known. :unsure: I still have leaks from both seals, but they appear to look worse than they likely are due to the airflow under the car at highway speeds. Please allow me to succinctly present my ideas and questions again.:)

I’d asked if this leakage could be caused by ailing differential bearings. There’s a wobble to both inner joints — not a sloppy looseness — but I believe that with every seal replacement they were leveraged back into the housing too surely for the c-clips to not have seated. The splines seem fine. The large sealed bearings in the differential look as if they were just installed, and I can get no play from the inner ring of them with a firm tug from my finger.

The leaks do not come from elsewhere. The transmission oil is the only fluid with UV dye in it, and that’s what’s being dispersed.

On one replacement effort I left the passenger-side seal just far enough out to almost make any gap between the seal lip and the joint disappear, but the leak eventually returned. I’ve done the same with the driver-side seal.

I can’t believe that even properly seated axles would be entirely free of off-axis fluctuation that would let the inner seal lip lose contact occasionally, in theory permitting some leakage. The driver-side axle always seems to sit a bit further out than the passenger-side one does, but as a non-pro driveway DIY guy, I’m not comfortable smacking the snot out of stuff like a ‘seen it all’ mechanic might do to determine if it can be persuaded to go in farther.

The seals have always been handled and driven in very carefully, with a couple of blunders that resulted in having to tap a seal a bit — but not much — farther than flush to make sure it wasn’t uneven. The wall depth of one of these is about 1/4″, and there’s more than that available going into the bore before the bottom of the seal ring comes close to one of the oil channels. The leaks are never from the area between seal and housing.

I’ve gone as few as 300 miles and as many as 3,000 before a leak will return.

I know that the transmission was slightly overfilled, but by how much I don’t know. I did that to compensate for the leaks and for my ability to monitor the fill level. I’ll occasionally check the fluid level, deliberately not on level ground. I’ll nose my car down a modest grade in the driveway or I’ll back the rear wheels up my ramps, and then use the scissor jack at the passenger-side pinch weld until the tire clears the ground — again in favor of a slight, compensatory overfilling. This should place all transmission oil at its greatest distance from the fill location. I’ve gotten a dribble from the fill port even in this contortion, and I’ll quickly replace the fill bolt. My biggest question now is if even slight overfilling might be the reason for my leaks. I don’t know if this transmission has a weep hole.

Honda’s originally recommended transmission fluid for my car was 10W-30 oil, I believe. As this is an OBDI car, the pre-1996 formulations for engine oil were richer in zinc and phosphorous. Those friction-reducing elements were lowered in concentration with the adoption of OBDII-era standards. Noting this, I replaced the fluid with Amsoil Series 3000 5W-30 Heavy Duty Diesel Oil, as my Amsoil rep informed me that this oil has the ‘most robust’ additive package of their entire line, with old-school zinc and phosphorous in the blend. I thought that this was worth mentioning.

I’m considering one more replacement, unless someone can confirm that my problem might truly be due to overfilling. That would seem a logical deduction, but again, I’m not a 30-year tech who’s done jobs like this 20 times. I’m seriously looking into using TIMKEN seals rather than the OEM Honda seals, as I saw a comment in a Honda-specific forum in which a guy had the same problem, solved, he said, when he made an installation of TIMKEN seals. The problem with this is that even after contacting TIMKEN and receiving a prompt, helpful reply, trying to determine a direct-fit match is proving to be a challenge. Their caveat is that the buyer uses their cross-reference resources at their own discretion and risk. This, too, shall pass.:pinch:

Well, so much for brevity.:P I err on the side of giving too much information rather than too little. Thanks for your time and effort if you’ve read this far and care to share some ideas. This leak issue commands far too much of my attention. :S

Sincerely,
Bill