208TT Outer Axle Seals

[Bob K]

I decided to brave the cold and go out to my shop over the weekend to see about how the outer axle seals go back together. When I removed them in the fall, I took them off one by one and placed them on a pc of cardboard. I took all of the bearing flanges and separated them, blasted them and had them all zinc plated. I went back to the seals and separated the pcs. None of them were the same with respect to the pcs. There are 6 yellow spacers, 3 rubber gaskets with a large hole, 2 rubber gaskets with about a 7/8 hole and a bunch of thin nylon pcs with about a 7/8 hole. Most of the rubber and nylon items do not appear "factory". How is this thing suppose to keep water out? Are the nylon pcs suppose to fit tight around the axles and keep water out? Take a look at the pics. I also posted some pics of my progress under 208TT rebuild in the Attex Gallery.

[jpswift1]

First off, very nice work! The best thing you can do is what Recreatives does when they build all the Max AATVs........use 3M Strip Caulk where the flanges face the spacers and the spacers mount against the body. Pretty much all of us use it too when we rebuild a machine. It's the best stuff out there for this kind of thing.

[Bob K]

Thanks Jpswift1, it is funny but about an hour after I wrote this post I found a video on changing out the axle bearings on a Max. The outer flanges looked very similar to mine and that strip caulk is what was used. So I guess those extra nylon and rubber bits are just not needed. I guess I thought that there would be more to it...seems pretty simple.