I bought a used 12 bolt rear end over the weekend and am preping it for the camaro. It looks like it's been sitting for a while so I figured I'd replace the axle bearings/seals and the pinion seal. I've never replaced a pinion seal before so I read the GM service manual. Any special tricks? It looks like GM used a tool to space the the seal out slightly from the nose of the housing. How far out should the seal sit? It says that the nut needs to be replaced. Can I reuse the nut with some Loctite? TIA Ted

Locktite would work.
The seal bottoms out inside before it bottoms on the outside. Take note of the gap and don't overdo pressing in the new seal. Put a little grease on the new seal and yoke seal surface or the seal can become damaged when first run.
Put a little non-hardening sealer on the yoke splines to seal them.

Check the yoke seal surface for pits or rust, you can polish it with some fine sand paper if it's bad.
David

David, Thanks for the response.

I replaced it today. I marked the pinion, nut, and yoke to make sure they went back together in the same position. It took a pretty good sized breaker bar to pull the nut (also to get the nut tightened back to the original position). Also, I bolted a piece of angle iron to the yoke to keep it from turning. All of the lines were aligned and it turns over the same as it did before I pulled the yoke so I think it went back together ok :confused: . I was concerned when it took the breaker to tighten it back up the last little bit. Is that usual?

Now to get it under the '69 and see if it makes a difference. It'll move it from a 3.31 (with a powertrax) to a 3.55 with a posi. graemlins/beers.gif