Front axles seal hanging loose

[deb0650]

Hi. I was changing my trans fluid this morning and did a quick examination while I was under the truck and noticed the right front axle seal hanging loose on the hub. What the hell!?! I took the wheel off to get a better look and sure enough the rubber seal was out of place. Please refer to the pics. The seal is entirely rubber with no metal case. There didn't appear to be any oil or grease on the hub to indicate leaking. I decided to check the driver side and same exact story. The seal looks exactly the same, just hanging there on the hub. This truck has 34,000 miles and is completely stock. It's out of the 3/36 warranty. I called my local Ford dealer and they said there is a chance Ford might pay for the fix, but no guarantee since they can't determine exactly when or why this happened. Has anyone experienced this with axle seals? Obviously I'm concerned about the bearings and hubs and the bucks to fix both if dirt got into it and screwed things up. Thanks.

[madmatt01]

it's a dust seal doesn't really do what it supposed to do don't worry about it until you need to change the inner hub seal.

[RNUOVR3]

Good to know. Thanks for the info.

[deb0650]

My concern is a I drive a lot in Baja and each trip includes a 15 mile drive down a rutted out dusty dirt road. I don't want hub problems on a trip 400 miles south of the boarder. Will this lead to early hub problems if I leave it as is? If I replace the dust seals will the new ones go bad just as quickly? Thanks.

[SandShark]

i go to the desert quite often. and both my dust seals on my truck are hanging loose like that. had no issues and i am not worrying about it. been that way since i bought the truck.

[eponator]

Those are just the dust seals and mine have been torn up since I got the truck at 61k... he's got 150k now and I just did a rebuild on the front axle this last weekend. Aside from a little dust in the axle tube nothing was wrong that I could see.

The shafts and internals were all in good shape despite being run for over 100k with faulty seals and I have taken him on plenty of dirt roads / private trails and even through a creek at one point. I wouldn't be too worried.

I did notice that my hub seal on the driver side had seperated into two pieces similar to that dust seal you have pictured there... That one worried me a bit but I didn't see any damage as a result.

If you're anything like me just wait till you gotta do balljoints or something else down there then replace them while you're at it for good measure heh.