I recently discovered why I have been going through axle seals so often, with my dana 30. A year ago, I had my XJ re geared to 4.56s. When I got it back, the driverside seal went instantly. Then after that the pinion seal went. Then after that the passenger side seal went. I've put off replacing the passenger side till now since the leak was slow. While I had everything apart, I decided to rebuild the spartan locker with a new pin and springs. When I removed the carrier, is when I noticed pieces of thin metal all crinkled up near the shims and bearings. Yup, one of the shims some how got all tore up and is flaking off little pieces of metal and ruining my seals.

So the big question is, can I remove the bearing and careful (in order) remove the shims and replace the mangled shim (what's left of it) with the same thickness and put it back together? Because the mangled shim is still there, I'm thinking I can easily replace it without having to reset everything again. But I'm pretty novice to this, so I seek your advice.

 

Nevermind. Looks like the previous installer put one too many shims on, and one of them wore off and created shrapnel in the differential. The gears sounded good before I pulled the carrier. So I'm gonna replace the seal and put her back together and see what happens. It's a piece of cake, when it's not my daily driver !!!