Silver colored gear oil after inner axle seal replacement

I had the inner axle seals replaced on my HP30 within the last 200 miles. My gear oil is now a solid silver color after being replaced twice. I had zero issues with this axle before the seals were replaced besides the fact that they were leaking. I'm getting chatter on deceleration once I reach about 20mph and lower. I haven't figured out yet if it's the axle or my throwout bearing as I think it goes away if I press the clutch in. I might be wrong though.

What could have gone wrong during the seal replacement to cause this?

I know it's metal, I'm just not entirely sure what could have gone wrong with the reassembly to make something destruct itself.

For some reason my fill plug is not picking up any shavings. I have a Solid cover and I can't remember if it came with this plug or if I reused the factory one.

The next day that it's not freezing out I'll have to pull the cover and see what's going on. I was told it's my carrier bearings, but I can't imagine why everything was fine until the seals were replaced. I understand the process of replacing them, and I know that the entire gear setup has to be removed from the housing. I thought it was pretty fool proof.

Quote from clendaniel

To do the inner seals they had to pull the carrier but the pinion remains in place....that 'should' be pretty straightforward but did they mebbe botch that? get caps reversed? overtorque the caps? reshim it or crunch an existing shim and overdo the preload? Those are the only things that come to mind as everything else should have remained in place for that job. If you're getting that much metal in the fluid it's gotta be some pretty aggressive wear so it should be pretty obvious when you pull the cover.

--Ian

Thanks Ian. I'll have a look at it when the weather decides to play nice again. Should I pull the caps? I've never done that before and am not sure if that'd be a good idea or not.

Quote from Keith_C

I would take it back to whoever replaced the seals.

Keith, I did. He took it all apart again and didn't see anything wrong. I talked to him today and he said the bearing caps went back on the same way they came off and were torqued to factory spec. I haven't seen it with my own eyes, so I have no idea what's going on in there. When I get time to pull the cover I will. I prefer to do my own work, but I thought this was a bit above my skill set.

This is what he told me:

"Caps were torqued to factory specs and went on exactly as they came off. I know this because they are marked with an diagonal H that's stamped on the housing and the cap. No shims were touched they are held on by the carrier bearings"

About 200. I hope it's not too serious either. I reallllllly don't want to have to have this set up again. >:(

Yep, nothing special. Stock everything except that it was regeared to 4.88.

Quote from turtle

have you been driving it around in 4wd? Does it make any difference if it is in 4wd or not noise wise?

I drove it today briefly in the snow. I didn't hear any strange noises in 2wd or 4wd. All seems well besides the fact that visually looking at the oil is telling me that can't be true.

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Finally got a video of the noise that I think is coming from the HP30. It never made this noise before the axle seals were changed. Easiest to hear it from about 50 seconds on. It does not do this constantly/consistently. It comes and goes sometimes worse than other times.

Quote from Solomi

only on deceleration? I heard a whistling/squealing as you were going down in speed and down shifting.

As said before, easiest thing will be to remove the cover and check it out for chips of metal etc. If it's coming out silver that means its grinding it pretty well, but you'll see chunks missing from the teeth or obvious erosion on any bearings.

It does it regardless of accelerating/decelerating. I put it in neutral so it was easier to hear over the engine. I know I need to take it apart - just haven't gotten that far yet with this crappy weather.