Rear Main Seal

Well, I cant put it off any longer. The rear main seal on my truck is SHOT. I have never droped the tranny before, so I have a few questions.
-Do I need to drain ALL the tranny fluid out?
-should I invest in a good tranny jack?
-how hard is this?
ANY tips or input welcome.
Thanks

The only ones I have done (that werent on a lift) were manual and 2wd so didnt have a bunch of extra weight. I just used a floor jack for those. I got frustrated trying to get the one for my mitsu lined up on the jack and ended up bench pressing it into place. Cant see me doing that with the rodeo though. If you have the drive shaft bolted to the flange on tranny/xfer case or an output shaft plug you can do it without draining any fluid.

You can usually rent a low profile tranny jack from a rental place. Or, if you have a floor jack that it will work on harbor frieght has a tranny jack adapter (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=507) for floor jacks on sale.

What kind of oil are you using??

Using the Val. Max life. 10W-30.

Have you always used the Maxlife? Or just recently? I.e. was the leak there before the Maxlife?

I've heard the HM oils will help but can sometimes take up to a year.

I have used the max life for the last 6 months but the leak has gotten worse since then.
Also, I was looking under the truck today and it looks like the transfer case will have to be removed seperatly, will this mean I have to drain the tranny fliud.

In my experience, there are rare times when a niche product like Max Life will work, but most of the time, you just have to grin, and take a bite if you know what I mean. It really bites we all don't live right around the block. All this Rodeo experience, we could knock out all our projects in half a day, and have time to catch a beer or three.

-Scott

:sunglasse