The Nissan Path

Hello All,

So one common part replacement I find a lot of Pathfinders (4WD/Off Road versions) have is a failure of the oil seals around the output shafts from the transfer case to front final drive. This seems to arise from perished/worn rubber seals or a groove that wears into the companion flange on the output shaft and accordingly generates a pass beneath the seal. Good news is the repair is pretty straight forward using basic hand tools (with the addition of a gear puller).

However, I made some inquires with Nissan regarding this and the part is really hard to find, I got a different part number from each of the 4 dealers I rang. I eventually narrowed the part number down to:

Front Oil Seal: 33216-7S11C (~$10-$16)
Companion Flange: 33210-7S11D (~$70-$140)

One thing that worried me slight was that one of the dealers mentioned that the design of the oil seal had changed compared with the factory fitted original and accordingly a new (and presumable re-designed) companion flange was also required to complete the replacement of the original worn oil seal. Has anyone got any further information on this? Seems odd that the seal would be retrospectively redesigned along with the companion flange. I will continue to up date as I find more information on the topic.

Cheers.

The redesign was intentional because of the chronic issues with them leaking. Design looked much better on the new one. I replaced mine and it was not too hard of a job. Just have to really put some muscle into the gear puller/seal puller.

Thanks. Did you end up having to replace the companion flange as well when you installed the new (redesigned) seal?

No I did not. I just pushed the propeller shaft to the side. It was super tight but got the job done.