Does this bearing look bad?

[AlexGSi2000]

Afternoon,

I was hoping someone more mechanically minded than me could take a look at the photo below and give an opinion?

Essentially, the father in law has a 2010 X3 Xdrive with a leaking front differential, we suspect it was like this before he purchased it a few months ago.

The thing that led us to the diff was a smell of gear oil once the car had been driven for around an hour - quick look under confirmed it.

I fitted an output shaft seal thinking that would be the cause and filled back up with oil - seemed to make no difference.

I took a quick picture whilst I was doing the job and after closer inspection - something doesn't look right to me.

Currently exploring a few different avenues - rebuild or used part - have kept it topped up in the meantime so it shouldnt grenade itself.

[littleredrooster]

Looks completely rusty and goosed to me!

[E-bmw]

Yes, the bearing needs replacing.

The outer seal has gone on the bearing as far as I can see.

A replacement bearing & seal should sort it.

[Lotobear]

Is that seal not fitted the wrong way around?

[richhead]

Agree, hard to tell from the photo, but it does look like the seal has been fitted the wrong way round to me

[stevieturbo]

Something about the seal doesn't look right. Impossible to say about the bearing, but the lower balls do look evenly spaced, so the cage likely intact, but hard to see.

[AlexGSi2000]

Thanks for the comments - there is no outer seal fitted at that point.

When I took the photo, I had removed the outer shaft seal and was ready to fit the new one.

Didnt pay much attention to the bearing on the inside at the time, just continued with the job.

Its only now that Ive gone back to look at the photo since its still leaking and figured that something doesnt look quite right with it.

From what I can guess, Im assuming the bearing has some kind of seal that may be damaged, hence oil working its way past the driveshaft seal (the driveshaft seal being more of a dust boot than fluid seal).

[stevieturbo]

There would be no sense the bearing having a seal, if there is an external seal.

[Krikkit]

That does look very messy - the seat of the seal looks pretty crusty, the floating piece over the bearing race looks wrong as well.

[richhead]

if thats a pic with no seal, then it looks like the plastic bearing carrier has collapsed, you the bit at the top looks ok, but not at the bottom, so yes it does apear the bearing is bad

[stevieturbo]

if a plastic carrier had collapsed, you'd expect to see the balls together, not evenly spaced as they appear to be

It's a crap photo though, so, hard to tell either way, or what the piece in front the bearing is

[E-bmw]

richhead said:

if thats a pic with no seal, then it looks like the plastic bearing carrier has collapsed, you the bit at the top looks ok, but not at the bottom, so yes it does apear the bearing is bad

Don't think the carrier has collapsed, looks more like the dust seal has come out, hence my earlier thoughts.

IMHO of course, could be wrong.

[AlexGSi2000]

stevieturbo said:

if a plastic carrier had collapsed, you'd expect to see the balls together, not evenly spaced as they appear to be

It's a crap photo though, so, hard to tell either way, or what the piece in front the bearing is

Metal carrier in these bearings.

At the moment, its sounding like there should be at least a seal on the bearing so you shouldnt be able to see the balls.
Im assuming diff oil is making its way past and then through the shaft dust seal.

Ive got a replacement used diff on the way, so will get some better photos of the good and bad so we can compare.

[stevieturbo]

AlexGSi2000 said:

Metal carrier in these bearings.

At the moment, its sounding like there should be at least a seal on the bearing so you shouldnt be able to see the balls.
Im assuming diff oil is making its way past and then through the shaft dust seal.

Ive got a replacement used diff on the way, so will get some better photos of the good and bad so we can compare.

There is zero reason for the bearing to have a seal.

[GreenV8S]

I wonder whether what looks like a damaged bearing seal is actually a bit that's broken off the external seal and fallen in. The radius doesn't look right to be part of a bearing seal.