Please help me with this leak..

[Sleepy McNastee]

My left-rear wheel has some oil/lube dripping on it(it looked like it was coming from the brake caliper). I removed the brake caliper and it is not leaking. So I took off the brake rotor and I'm at the wheel studs. Right behind the wheel studs there is a black seal and it is leaking this oil.

My question is, is this leak common? I feel stupid, but is there supposed to be lube all throughout the axles or just in the differential? I took my car to the shop for gears a couple months ago, so I don't know anything about these particular rear-ends. I know some trucks have lube in the axles, but I don't know about the setup in our cars.

Again I feel dumb for not knowing, but is there oil in the axles, or did mine leak all the way from the differential? I searched for a couple hours and came up with no solid anwers for my particular question. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[RIO5.0]

Axle seal is leaking...lube from the dif comes down that way to lube things up..
the axles need to be pulled to swap the seal...only 4.00 for the seal...pisser the guy who swapped the gears didnt do it...its cheap money to do em...its suggested you replace them with a gear swap...if its got high milage then its prolly the culprit..when removing the axles if you hit them or let em lay on the rubber portion of the seal, they can be damaged...

the dif cover has to be pulled, C-clips removed and then the axles can be pulled out...pull out the axle seal and replace it...if you have it torn down to the the calipers being removed you have 2/3 of the job done...(1) seal per side so do em both..

 

[Sleepy McNastee]

Cool ,thank you very much Andy.

 

[RacerRick]

while your that far into it you should change the bearings too, they ride directly on the axle so if the bearing fails it'll ruin the axle!! check the axle for scoring, I've seen axles almost cut in half!(customer said they heard a noise in the wheel!)

 

[Sleepy McNastee]

Thanks for the info Rick. I will check those out when I get to them.

Right now I have everything back together because the seal didn't leak at all when the car was parked in the garage. The driveway I park on is an incline with the back wheels at a much lower point than the front. So I parked backwards, and it doesn't leak so far... Temporary fix, but I want to put stronger axles in if I'm going to take out the stock ones to change the seals and bearings.