help with 64 dart rearend

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cchrishefish

cchrishefish

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I have a 64 dart gt with the slant 6 and the small 7.25 rear differential. I noticed a small leak on the differential 2 weeks ago, tightened the bolts, and it still seems to be leaking at the bottom. I am having trouble locating the gasket, does anyone have a part number or a part source? I want to take the car on a trip to Watkins Glenn race track this Summer, so I can show my wife's friend and Husband the car while he races his Porsche at the track. I want to make sure it makes the trip.
 
It the cover gasket is leaking you can go to your local parts house and get a Fel Pro RDS12775. Make sure it's not the front seal leaking and running down the bottom of the case, appearing to be at the cover gasket.
 
Clean everything as good as possible & when you see fluid leaking again see if it is running down from the pinion. I had a leak & thought it was the cover but it turned out to be the pinion seal. It is still a fairly easy fix, just unbolt the driveshaft, hold it up out of the way with a bungee cord, get a new seal & see about borrowing a puller from the local auto store to pull the pinion yoke off, replace the seal & put it all back together. There are lots of write ups on replacing pinion seals.
 
If it is the diff cover, just clean it really good and use silicone. Run an 1/8" bead, let set about 10 minutes and replace the cover and tighten.
 
Make sure the cover isn't warped too bad around the bolt holes from over tightening. May need to hammer it flat again. This would be more critical with a paper gasket. Personally I would just glue it on with RTV as mentioned above.
 
It is the pinion seal, thank you for the advice, I am going to need a new seal, does anyone know a part number or source for my car? Most of the time when part houses look up the parts, they end up pulling the part for the larger differential, I want to avoid that problem.
 
Well, I found one on ebay with a inflated price, but I found the part number there, it is P/n 2404134. So, I bought it on rockauto.com. i am wondering if I should attempt this myself or have the local vintage car guy do it for me. I do not have a gear puller, and I do not know which type I need to do the job right. I think it is about 1 hour of labor tops?
 
I looked up the 7 1/4 Pinion Oil Seal removal & installation steps in my 65 Dart Shop Manual
On pg 3-17 is the removal:
1) Remove the pinion nut & yoke with puller Tool C-452 & holding tool C-3281
2) Remove the pinion oil seal with puller tool C-748

On pg 3-21 is the installation:
1) Install pinion oil seal (lip toward the pinion head) with holding tool C-3719 to space the seal flange the proper distance from the carrier
2) Install the yoke using tool C-3718 and hold tool C-3281
3) Remove the tools and install the washer (cupped side toward pinion head) and nut. Tighten nut to 240 foot pounds

What I take away from all of this is that since they did the pinion seal with the axle out of the car they couldn't take advantage of the car resting on the tires to prevent rotation of the yoke when removing the heavily torqued nut.....thus they need the C-3281 tool to hold the yoke from rotation.....If I did the job I'd try putting the car rear tires up on wheel ramps, set the emergency brake, & block the front tires to avoid that tool.....but if it looked unsafe then I'd drive another car right up against the front bumper to hold it firm. I have a manual 4 speed....with an automatic I don't know what you do.

Their tool puller C-452 is simply a heavy forged disk with threads in the center for a threaded shaft. The disk is bolted to the yoke & the threaded shaft bears against the pinion. This looks like a standard puller could be used to me.

The specialized Pinion seal removal tool however might be neat & quick but I'd probably be stuck with breaking up the seal & pulling it out with pin punch, pliers, or ??? This would go ugly for me.

On the install the position or depth the seal is installed to is controlled by their installation tool.....I think I would note the seal depth of the existing one (take pictures too) and try installing to the same depth.

I've never done this job on my 65 Dart but would guess that without the pinion seal removal tool things would slow down for me....my guess is an hour wouldn't work for my tool assortment......

If you want pictures of the manual illustrations let me know.

Hopefully someone out there has done the job & can give you an estimated time with the tools they had available

ps: got a torque wrench that goes to 240 ft lbs? My 3/4 drive torque wrench can do that but not my 1/2 drive.
 
Thank you for the great information. I will let you know if I need the illustrations. I am thinking seriously of taking the easy way out and have Trick Automotive here in Mattydale, NY do this job for me. If anyone is at the Syracuse Nationals and needs a good shop for their old cars, I highly recommend this shop. The owner has a really nice old Dodge flat bed stake truck, it is beautiful.
 
It's easier with shop air and the factory manual tends to be over dramatic...lol. IMO, pay the shop. Prob will cost an hour's labor and shop supplies. Also, after shopping over the last 3 weeks for 7.25 parts... Your parts guy HAS to be very good. The computer cataloging will not come up with the right numbers 90% of the time, and a mediocre parts guy with a good set of books will screw it up 30% of the time...
 
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