The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Torque tube U-joint housing leak

I have read several threads about torque tube leaks, the cork seals tend to be prone to leaking especially at the threaded collar. I used rubber seals recently and still had a leak but not from the rubber seal so I figured the oil was working back around the threads and leaking out.I cleaned the area around the collar and applied some of the Permatex gasket maker and so far so good. However there is drawback with the rubber seal if you want to remove the ball and collar. Apparently once the seal gets oil on it the seal swells up and becomes EXTREMELY TIGHT on the torque tube making the threaded collar very difficult to move along the torque tube.

The gear oil gasket maker was used on the shafts of my transmission where they go into the case. The shaft that leaked was below the input shaft so gear oil would leak out the front of the transmission and work its way to the bottom of the transmission and drip-drip, some of the oil also went into the splash pan and dripped out of there. This past winter the transmission had been disassembled for new bearings so that was an excellent time to apply the gasket maker as a sealant on that shaft, and that leak is now gone.

Interesting solution to a frequent leak spot. Thanks for sharing. That sounds like it would also prevent the collar nut from vibrating loose.

I wonder if you can use the "Gear Oil" gasket maker along with the cork seal, to seal the things up and skip the rubber seals swelling up and making things super tough to later disassemble?

You probably could use it as long as the cork seal is not leaking, I found that the leak came from the backside of the collar, oil must have been working its way through the threads, crazy but I'm sure that is where the leak came from.
This was the first time I added pictures and I was worried I would screw that up. I wrote out all the instructions to post pictures before hand and kept referring to them as I was writing the post and I was surprised that it all worked okay.

I also forgot to include that my truck is a 1938 half ton pickup.

About two months ago I posted about rebuilding the torque tube and differential. Well not sure what happened but the rear cover had a small leak so I removed it to replace the gasket. However there were small chips of metal laying on the area just below the pinion gear, some chips were of a size that was concerning, so it was all disassembled again and new bearings and seals installed again. My guy that did the work said all the bearings were good and he's not sure what caused the chips. One thing we found was that the back side of the pinion gear was too close to the bearing as there was some scoring on the bearing race surface. I also think the ring & pinion are cutting a new wear pattern; when first checked the backlash was .010" and he reset it to .006". So now on the second rebuild within six weeks I placed a magnet in the bottom of the housing. It will be okay as I am not asking my guy to help me with another torque tube rebuild!

Glen Andrews

Great added info and you did a fine job with the pictures!

For future use, you can add your truck information in your profile “signature line”.

That way it’s always present in every post you make. Big time saver, especially for folks like me that are two finger typists - lol.