For reasons I won't bore you with, I was unable to change the final drive oil and inspect the final drive splines of my 2017 TE on the same day, so decided to split the tasks. Sounds OK so far? I thought so as well.
Having watched various 'Tube' videos and perused the Haynes manual I could so no reason why the final drive had to be free of oil before I cracked the swinger to inspect the splines. (In my defence, I phoned a very good friend who is a very competent home mechanic and had done both tasks the week before.)
So I cracked the swinger and concentrated on getting the boot off and inspecting the spline and universal joint.
Only then did I notice a large puddle of dirtyish final drive oil on my garage floor. The oil had pissed out of one of the two holes left when I removed the speed sensor. As well as spreading kitty litter all over the garage floor to absorb the oil, it took me about an hour to be certain that I had got all the oil off my rear disc with brake cleaner.
Every cloud has a silver lining and I found the splines to be rust free, very clean but devoid of any grease.
As my old Dad used to say, " Try to learn from other people's mistakes and not your own.'
Having watched various 'Tube' videos and perused the Haynes manual I could so no reason why the final drive had to be free of oil before I cracked the swinger to inspect the splines. (In my defence, I phoned a very good friend who is a very competent home mechanic and had done both tasks the week before.)
So I cracked the swinger and concentrated on getting the boot off and inspecting the spline and universal joint.
Only then did I notice a large puddle of dirtyish final drive oil on my garage floor. The oil had pissed out of one of the two holes left when I removed the speed sensor. As well as spreading kitty litter all over the garage floor to absorb the oil, it took me about an hour to be certain that I had got all the oil off my rear disc with brake cleaner.
Every cloud has a silver lining and I found the splines to be rust free, very clean but devoid of any grease.
As my old Dad used to say, " Try to learn from other people's mistakes and not your own.'


