our rocky has an oil leak from inside front wheel

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our (well it's my daughters, not mine) newly acquired, diesel H reg Rocky has just developed an oil leak inside the front left hand wheel, the oil drips onto the inside wall of the tyre !.

I guess this must be an oil seal or similar, something to do with the cv joint (thats what they call them on cars anyway) I guess it will cost us a fair bit of money to fix it eh. It certasinly doesnt sound or look like a DIY job anyway.

Any ideas on the severity of this leak, is it as bad as it looks ?.

tim

oil leak

Hi Tim,
Get that oil leak checked out it sounds like its could be a brake cylinder leaking, are your brakes soft or spongy if so its defintly brakes leaking,in any case I would say a wise move is to get it checked out just in case, your lives could be at risk.
Alfie.

Its not brakes....so dont wor

Its not brakes....so dont worry about that...the front brakes do not have brake cylinders...they are discs and have calipers.

I reckon the oil (different to brake fluid)is a failing swivel seal.
This is a steering componant...but dont worry your steering is,nt about to fail. A lot of 4x4 vehicles suffer this failure...its actually a fairly easy fix which any diy..er could do.
Try cleaning up the oil on the swivel joint and any contaminated surrounding bits to see how bad the leak is...I had one go on me...cleaned it up to realise the leak was not too bad at all..

thanks lads for the help, it

thanks lads for the help, it looks as if we are getting it serviced by somebody who knows, because we dont really know whats been done to it before and when, so he can look at that leak, the only thing we DO know about it is the cam belt was changed at 77k it's now done 106k

tim

axle leak

timmy, I will send you a private message.....there's two ways to go about it......too much to type now...

Cheers

H

Cheers

H

thanks friend, its been diagn

thanks friend, its been diagnosed and our mechanic fewlla is fixing it next week, it seems to be something to do with a seal on rhe constant velocity joint, (or thats what they called these bits on Mini's !, LOL.

tim

Callipers are still driven by

Callipers are still driven by cylinders, just a diffrent shap. It's a bit like Footi & Rugger, they both use balls.

Any veiws expresed in this thread by me are purely from my own experience, and (sometimes) falible memory. Hope my comments help, but please don't take them as gospel.

It's not a bad job to replace

It's not a bad job to replace a swivel housing seal.
1) Remove wheel.
2) undo 4 bolts in top swivel baring back plate (right on top of swivel housing) and remove baring on it's plate. Don't lose any shimes you get out from under this.
3) repeat for bottom swivel baring (right on bottom of swivel housing).
4) pull compleat hub, break, swivel housing assembly away from car as far as break hose will alow without streatching it.
5) you should now be able to get at the seal retaining bolts.
6) change seal and bolt every thing back together as you found it.
You can take this oppertunity to shim the swivel barings up. If there was any play in the swivel housing befor put less shimes back in when reasembling. The swivel should have no play, but not be stiff to move by hand.

Alternitivly as a quick fix, you can remove the top swivel baring (if there is no greeas nippel). Then you can pump as much greeas into the housing as it will take. Earlier 4traks (F50's and such) used to run there c.v.s on greeas all the time.

Any veiws expresed in this thread by me are purely from my own experience, and (sometimes) falible memory. Hope my comments help, but please don't take them as gospel.

What am I thinking about...of

What am I thinking about...of course calipers have cylinders...doh !!

And of course they have seals and can leak...

It just seemed to me that going by the posting it struck me that it was more likely to be the swivel seal...but the leak should be carefully investigated to ascertain the exact location of any oil/fluid leaks...apologies if I confused the issue by suggesting that disc brakes do not have cylinders...must have been half asleep when I wrote that one.