How to Replace Front Passenger Side Axle Seal 2007-17 Ford Expedition

Okay, friends, one of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support our truck. After you've done that, go ahead and remove your center cover. After that, remove all six of your 21-millimeter lug nuts, then remove your wheel. Let's go ahead and grab onto this cap right here and take it off. We'll set this aside. Now, it's going to be time to remove our 13-millimeter axle nut. Let's go ahead and put one of our lug nuts onto the stud here to hold the rotor from moving around too much on us. Now from the backside here, let's go ahead and remove these two bolts.

Now, we're going to need to disconnect and unsecure our ABS wire. If you come up inside the wheel well here, you should be able to pull this out and that's going to be where our ABS wire disconnects. Go ahead and push on that center tab, separate the two. Now we're just going to follow this wire down along the frame, and we're going to go ahead and relieve those as well. This one off of here. And now just safely put that ABS wire so it's not dangling and it can't get caught on anything. Now, the next thing that we're going to want to do is relieve our outer tie rod end nut from the knuckle. Let's give this a couple of loving bonks with the hammer to break it free. Now, we're gonna come up here to this upper ball joint nut. Let's go ahead and take that off of there as well. Just be careful because this could potentially come down.

Take that nut, start it back on there just a couple of threads. And now we're going to give this a loving bonk with our hammer as well. Hold down on that upper control arm, go ahead and remove the nuts. And then carefully bring this down. As we bring this down, make sure you don't put a tug on your axle in between the boot area here. And you definitely want to make sure you don't put a tug on your flex hose or, of course, your vacuum lines. Now, the next thing we need to do is go ahead and clean down the seal area where this axle is going to be kind of going into. Obviously, we want to make sure that there isn't any debris around there.

So, now that we have this area cleaned down here fairly well, we want to continue on by removing the axle. To do that, I'm gonna use a hammer and I'm going to come right along this right here and just try to knock it out. There we are. All right. Let's just move this around. There we are. Let's go ahead and wipe down this area. Now, the next thing we're going to do is try to come up in between the differential tube itself and the seal. You'll be able to see that there's a little bit of a split. Just get in between there with something that you'll be able to get in there. And then just go ahead and start separating the two. There it is, friends.

The next thing we want to do is clean down the area on the differential tube where the seal's going to ride. It's going to be easiest with a nice razor blade. I can get that If I can get my hands in. Okay, friends, now it's going to be time to install our brand new seal. Something that I want to mention real quick is along the backside here, there's going to be a little spring. You want to use a little bit of petroleum jelly inside this area just to make sure that the spring doesn't fall off during installation. I also usually like to take a little bit of that petroleum jelly and I'll just go along the inner portion of this seal right here. You'll notice on the outside, it already has a nice sealing agent there so you don't necessarily have to worry about anything.

Let's get ready for the install. To install the seal, what you're going to want to do is make sure that you press along this outer edge of the seal. You don't want to press along the colored area because, of course, that could force its way in there, and then, of course, the seal will be damaged. If you could find yourself a nice cup like this, that might fit over, that would be helpful. Ours is a little bit too small and it's the biggest I've got, so I'm just going to show you a different way.

Get this up on here. What I'm essential trying to do right here is just start this in. Once I get it started, I'll go ahead and I'll finish off with a punch. Now let's just continue with a nice big punch around that outer lip. I'm just going to go from side to side, make sure it's going in as straight as possible.

Okay. The next thing you want to do is look all the way around your seal. You want to make sure it's completely seated up against the differential tube and you also want to make sure, of course, there's nothing pushing out anywhere. This seal is actually a double seal. So, essentially, the center part can't potentially move a little bit. You want to make sure that it's in good condition. This looks great. Let's just apply a little bit of lubricant along the splines of this axle shaft. I'm going to get that axle so it's lined up. Now what we want to do is push on the knuckle so it pushes the axle up and onto that stub shaft. And then, of course, make sure it's completely bottomed out. So, give it a couple of loving bonks, and then, of course, give it a tug. We want to make sure this doesn't pop back off of here. If it did, there's an issue with your lock ring on the stub shaft. A little bit of thread locker on this.

Now, let's go ahead and put our upper ball joint into the knuckle. Pull down on this, and then start our nut. Let's go ahead and torque this to 85 foot-pounds. Let's go ahead and put in our outer tie rod end. We'll snug this up as well. Torque this to 85 foot-pounds. Now, the next thing we need to do is go ahead and put a little bit of copper never-seize or some sort of lubricant inside these two holes. After you've done that, let's go ahead and get this bracket on. The rear one is the bigger bolt. Now let's go ahead and do that ABS wire. You want to make sure that this is down like this and not up along the top. Snug them up. Let's start remounting this. The wire goes in between here and here. There we are. Let's reconnect in the ABS wire up along the top here. Listen for a click, make sure it's completely connected. And then, of course, resecure it into the fender liner. Let's go ahead and put this axle on that on here.

I'm just going to take a nice bar and come across between these studs, and then I'm going to torque this axle nut to 20 foot-pounds. Go ahead and reapply your cover. You just want to make sure that the area where it's supposed to mate the seal isn't damaged in any way. If you want to use some gasket maker, we'll call it your prerogative. Make sure it's completely seated all the way around.

Let's go ahead and clean down our mess in case there's any fluid that came out. And then we're also going to make sure we double-check our fluid level. The check plug is right on the passenger side of the front differential, and you're going to want to use 80-90 GL-5 to fill it. Let's go ahead and go wheel up on here. Start on all of your lug nuts, and then we'll torque them down to 150 foot-pounds. Reinstall your center cover. Torqued.