Amount of oil draining through rear drive axle tube

[HDN]

Has anyone measured how much oil drains out of the rear drive axle tube when removing the drive flange? I'm trying to figure out how much gear oil to buy for my wheel seal project. I'm thinking it's going to be somewhere between 2 and 3 quarts per wheel but I really have no idea. I was going to buy a 5 gallon bucket of O'Reilly's stuff but if I don't need that much I won't buy that much.

EDIT: Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about? The wheel/axle seals shouldn't allow gear oil to pass through the end of the tube, right? So then oil should come out when I pull the drive flange only if the seals are bad?

 

[NDT]

Right, if your truck is sitting level, no oil will come out from the differential reservoir.

 

[cattlerepairman]

When you lift up one side of the axle to just above level, hardly any mess ensues. Put a rag there anyway. Maybe a cup of oil, tops.

Sent from my SM-G991W using Tapatalk

 

[HDN]

Thanks for the info - it seems that any pictures I've seen of this job there's always an oil pan half-full with GO, making it look pretty messy!

 

[NY Tom]

Thanks for the info - it seems that any pictures I've seen of this job there's always an oil pan half-full with GO, making it look pretty messy!

Probably most of those videos the keyway seal and/or other seals went bad and the hub is filled with GO. If everything is perfect there should not be so much in there when you open it up.

 

[G744]

Reseal the groove with RTV not cork.

Works better big time.

 

[HDN]

Reseal the groove with RTV not cork.

Works better big time.

I've read that too. A gob of the RTV seems more effective than cork.