THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

I am noticing oil streaks running down the inside of the front right tire. When tracing it down, I can see that it is coming form somewhere between the wheel and where it mounts onto the planetary gear. Looking at the explosion drawings, I can't really see how may seals/gaskets there are. Does/did anybody have the same issues?

Thanks.

Marcus

Hi Marcus,
The outer seal is the notorius "Stefa" seal. It is a dust/grease seal as the outer bearing is greased.
The next seal is on the portal gear and prevents the oil getting from the gear side/inner bearing to the outer bearing. The nut on the shaft has an O-ring seal to prevent oil leaking through the splines.
If I could work out how to attach files I have a pdf which shows this...
Ian.

Thanks

roobar_and_custard wrote:Hi Marcus,
The outer seal is the notorius "Stefa" seal. It is a dust/grease seal as the outer bearing is greased.
The next seal is on the portal gear and prevents the oil getting from the gear side/inner bearing to the outer bearing. The nut on the shaft has an O-ring seal to prevent oil leaking through the splines.
If I could work out how to attach files I have a pdf which shows this...
Ian.

The way I post pieces of pdf's is to bring up the pdf in question on screen, do a "ctrl and prt/sc" to copy the displayed screen to the clipboard than open an image editing program, create a new blank image and past the contents of the clipboard into it, crop or modify as needed, save as a jpg file and upload that file.

or e-mail me the pdf and I'll see if i can post a picture of it.

Thanks again. Maybe you can email me at thedoeges@comcast.net

Hopefully this worked.

Hub section was extracted from one of the Volvo manuals (can't remember which one). The red circles show the three seals.

And a picture of my hub dismantled...

Awesome. Thank you. Any idea on where I can get the seals ordered from?

Two places I know of are:-
http://www.tatanka.nu/ - they have all the C303 parts available.
and http://www.flyingspanners.net/ - who do a hub seal conversion.

I need to resolve the same issue myself and will be visiting one of the local bearing suppliers to see if I can get matched seals. I imagine I'll be making up a conversion for the "stefa", but we'll see...

Good luck.
Ian.

If theres oil on the wheel its almost always the CV boot.
Easy to check that before you dismantle the hub.

All right, I finally had some time to take the front right wheel off to trouble shoot. The first picture is an overview, the second shows a close up and there is a drop of oil forming on the top. I thought that whatever is below the cv boot, is grease lubricated, not oil. Any ideas? I am about to pull the planetary gear assembly off to get to look at the boot, but it involves disconnecting the brake lines etc. before I do that, I'd like to make sure it's what I am looking for.

I'm pretty sure its the CV boot. Feel around it a look for a split in one of the valleys.

Thank you, I will. If it is, I assume I will have to take the whole thing of to replace it, or is there a shortcut?

You can dismount the whole portal in one piece and withdraw the drive shaft.
- Basically disconnect brake lines and breathers
- undo the bolts holing the swivel body to the axle (catch the oil)
- withdraw the portal and drive shaft (I made a custom support for my trolley jack to help, its heavy)

I think you can replace the boot without removing the portal box from the swivel.
Although what i did was to fit the kingpin conversion bearings kit from Hofs at the same time.