Leaking swivel joints

It's not unusual for garages unfamiliar with Jimnys to be alarmed at the condition of the swivels and suggest a new axle. This is because most UK garages are more familiar with Landrovers, which have an oil bath swivel design that relies on a chrome surface to keep the oil in. The garage assumes that the Jimny leaking oil is the same issue as Landrovers get when their swivel surface deteriorates, but as we know it's entirely different. On a Landrover you can replace just the swivel part of the axle for this reason.

If you don't desperately need to drive the car, whilst it is apart you can clean the rust off the swivel housings with emery cloth or something, (I just used a flap wheel in the drill) degrease & paint with a suitable hard paint, one of those epoxy paints would be good. Some recommend filling in the pits with polyester filler or that "metal" filler I forget the name of, but I just left the pits and painted them.
I used Aldi metal paint, which took about a week to go hard. It might go quicker in this infernal heat...

If you assemble it before the paint is hard the dust seals will scrape the paint off.


 


 

Por15 is good for the above, dries glass hard.

+1 on the por15