So while my jeep was on the lift getting my hitch installed I had a chance to really look around. Found a rust hole starting in my muffler and my cat is starting to come apart also. I can handle fixing those but I am not sure about this:



now is this something that I would be able to manage fixing with the use of the service manual or should I have someone fix it for me?

 

easy. mark the threads, remove the pinion nut, remove the yoke, replace seal, replace yoke and torque pinion nut back down to spc

 

any special tools required I may have to acquire in order to do this or will my basic shop tools get me through? In the service manual it shows a bunch of speciality tools.

 

you might need a thin wall nut.

 

You could possibly need a puller to get the pinion yoke off. As rusty as it is I would figure that is a good bet. Just go to your local Autozone and get a puller. What they do is sell it to you and if you return it in as good of shape as when you bought it, they will buy it back from you...so you basically end up getting to use it for free. It's a pretty good policy.

 

thanks will have to make some time avaliable between work and kids to get it fixed

 

yea gotta love south western PA weather everything rusts!!!

 

I don't undstand why the highway dept. uses salt back east for icey roads. Sand works just fine for us here out west. It can be tough on a paint job over time but, no drivetrain corrosion underneath.

 

no clue, some places here use a mixture not just straight salt, and then they use a pretreater before heavy snows so they can try to keep up either way its one of our worst enemies