81 300SD Inside CV boot leaking oil
 

81 300 SD the inside CV boot on the driver side half shaft is leaking oil.
Can this be gear oil coming from the differential?
All info appreciated!
Update: mechanic said it’s liquified grease from the cracked boot.
I guess that takes care of my question.

Unlike most CV joints, yours would have originally contained oil, not grease.

If your axle is otherwise sound, you might want to consider replacing the boots with the Astoria 2000 stretch boot. I did that on my '82 300D several years ago and have been happy with the result.

http://www.astoria2000.net/

That’s good to know, thanks!

If both the boot and the differential have similar oil the only way to find out is to decrease it till everything is dry and see where the leak actually is.

If the Differential fill plug has never been removed before folks say it can be extremely difficult to get out. They say before draining the differential oil be you can get the fill plug out or you can't put more oil in.

There is more then a few threads on the rebooting issue.

If you have a annular axle which on the differential end the axle has bolts going through it you can take that end apart and in stall new boots or boot from that end.

When I installed seals on the differential it self the inside spring that goes around the seal lip popped out and I could not get it back on and had to remove the seals from the differential.
When I re-installed I found a socket to stick in the middle to keep the lip spread and the spring under tension.