I honestly cannot recall where I picked up this little trick or I would definitely give credit where credit is due. The situation is you’re rebuilding or re-gearing a solid front axle – Dana 30, Dana 44, Dana 60, AAM 9.5, you name it – and you need to replace the front axle seals. Getting them out should be easy. You can probably think of a lot of ways to do that. But how to press the new ones in without damage?
What I do is find a long piece of all-thread (actually I do enough axles that I keep a length of 1/2-13 threaded rod around the shop just for this) and a couple of nuts and washers. And you will want to get yourself a bearing and seal driver kit like the one shown. This one is from Harbor Freight but it doesn’t matter what brand you prefer. I don’t buy much from Harbor Freight; but, let’s be honest, it’s hard to muff up what is essentially a bunch of aluminum pucks.
From there it is real simple. You can use a couple of correctly sized bearing drivers from the kit to draw the old seal out using the all-thread and nuts. Reverse the process to press them in. The images below, left and middle, show the old seal being drawn out. The image on the right shows the new one being pressed in.
That’s all there is to it! As always, stay safe!