The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Drive shaft/Axle Work

While investigating the parking brake, I came across other issues. It started with noticing oil in the right rear brake drum which led to me pulling the axle and installing a new seal. In that process, I found that the differential had too much fluid in it - when I took out the fill plug, gear oil came out. This led me to the bushings and seal in the drive shaft near the transmission likely being bad (fluid from the transmission leaking down into the differential). After some research and help here, I came across the Okie solution.

Also while under the truck, I noticed the threaded collar that seals the torque tube to the bell housing (?) was unscrewed and also leaking fluid. I could not get the collar to screw back on possibly as suggested on here because I need to align the two pieces so they are parallel and therefore the collar will screw on correctly. This led to a question about the transmission mount pads maybe being worn.

So I have ordered the Okie bushing and seal and the transmission mount pad kit.

I have some images attached. I meant to take more photos during the axle removal process and the seal replacement, but kept forgetting!

Two of the images attached are for the following questions:

One image shows what I believe is the bell housing cover. From what I understand, I need to remove this cover and then inside of there I will be detaching the u-joint and from there be able to access the torque tube and drive shaft to do the work on the bushing and seal. It seems likely I will have to remove the frame cross member, correct?

Another image shows the transmission mount pads. It looks completely wrong to me. I would think the pads should be on the top side of the plate as their current position would appear to have no purpose. They are currently not in between anything from what I can tell.