Of course I know the answer to the obvious question is replace the seal...

It's the Dana 30, of course, and I have an 88.

But that will take 4-500$ at a shop or a lot of work that is more complex than the stuff I have done. One of my friends has done a rear axle before and to him, those are easy, but he looked at the front and told me he didn't feel confident in it to help me take it all apart.

For now it is not too huge of a leak, and I haven't been off roading in a while. But I know the snow is coming so I need to either keep wasting fluid in it or replace something.

Somebody told me that I could go to a "pick and pull" place and find a whole new axle and differential for not too much money. What do you guys think of this? Is it less complex to replace the whole thing?

I'd love some opinions and some links. I honestly couldn't find anything online about pulling the whole thing off and putting a new one on.

 

It's an easy job...

Support Jeep
Remove wheels
Remove brake caliper, bracket and rotor
Remove 3 13mm 12pt bolts from back side of Unit bearing
Slide bearing and shaft out in one piece.
Repeat on other side

Remove cover
Drain fluid
Remove carrier bearing caps (Make sure you pay attention to how these came off.)
Remove carrier
Remove seal
Replace seal

Then put it all back together. This is about a 3 hour job, give or take.

 

It's not that bad of a job. Here's a good detailed writeup. http://naxja.net/forum/showthread.php?t=937821

 

I guess it's one of those things that once you do things like it a few times, it becomes easy.

I'll show this to my buddy who's done the rear before and see what he thinks