EmazingXJ

Hey guys im new to the forum and figured this would be the best place to ask questions before i buy stuff so here i go. The other day i noticed my front pinion seal was leaking on my Dana 30 so i removed the front drive shaft and went to go pull off the pinion nut to change the seal but as soon as i grabbed the nut the whole yoke was able to move up down left right, their was way to much play in it. now ive been doing my research and figured it would be the crush sleeve, but apon doing more research i keep seeing that High pinion dana 30's dont use crush sleeves instead they use shims. So what im asking is what's wrong and what do i need to buy to fix this?

Lead Foot

Was there play before you removed the pinion nut? If not then your bearings are fine. Replace the seal and put it back together. Torque as specified in the manual.

EmazingXJ

the whole thing has play with the nut still on.

Lead Foot

K. Just wanted it clarified as I was a little unclear. Then you have bad bearings. You will need to replace your pinion bearings and go through both the ring and pinion and carefully inspect them. Are they stock gears? If so then most likely someone ran the rig for a long time with water/mud in the diff fluid or ran the diff completely empty of fluid. Then If I were you I would just replace the whole axle or it is now a good time to put in a lower gear ratio. If the gears aren't stock then most likely they werent installed correctly or one of the above. In this case you might get away with having a shop just replace the bearings and resetup the existing gears if there is no damage to the ring and pinion.

XJ Pank

I had the same prediciment. First knew it was a bad beariing from the play. Me and a buddy went through the effort to pull it out put new bearings in and rest the gears. Gave it a few more wheeling trips and the new bearing was toast. Not as bad as the first time where the tapered rollers actually fell out of their carrier and also chewed the 'carrierl the tapered rollers where in. With the second bearing it didn't last long. When I pulled it this last time to regear to 4.56 the whole alxe housing was shot. The whole got so wallowed out that the race wouldn't stay in at all (signs of over heating do to the bad bearing). If I where you like mentioned above id get a whole new housing.

With a new housing you can still drive around and take a little time to build up the new 30 and as mentioned again regear it. One problem id highly suggest rixing while you have a clean new housing is the breather. Id loose mine every trip with the chinsy plastic peice that press fits into the diff. I haven't goten to it yet but I'm going to tap the housing to fit a compression fitting that a hose can clamp to. I think tthe debris mud water whatever you take in through tht hole is what killed my bearings so quickly.

With a break like you have nows the time to build it up and swap it in. Hope you can find another one if that's the route you decide