differential seals

I am working on cleaning up and painting many of the suspension parts on my '73 and noticed the differential looked like it had leaked a little from the side yokes.  It has been sitting for about 20 years so all that was there was a stain.  Can I replace the seals without majorly getting into the rear end and dealing with the ring and pinion setup?  I would also like to remove them so the diff is a little easier to paint.

Personally, I'd wipe it off with some solvent or prep sol. Paint it and let it go. I wouldn't take anything off of a working diff unless I was planning on going all the way through it. If it ain't broke..............

I've done a frame off on my car and all I did to my diff was clean and paint. It worked fine before, if it quits, I'll tear it down.

The side yoke seals cannot be replaced without removing the diff. The side yokes are held in by snap-rings on the inside. I'm wid Dave on this one....

The diff is out of the car right now and I have to open it up anyways because the cover is broken.  My new cover should be hear tomorrow, and I figured since it was open anyways I could take care of the problem.

Thats cool. With the cover off, you should be able to see the snap-rings that hold the yokes in. You need to have some 90deg.(angled) snap-ring pliers to get the rings off. Once the snap-rings are off, the yoke will slide right out. Then you can replace the seals, and reassemble.
While you are there, tho, check the end-clearance of the yokes.(free-play) If there is too much, there are different thickness snap-rings you can use to take up the play. If there is a LOT of play, then now would be the time to replace the yokes. I have looked for years to find the specs on the end-play of the yokes, but have never seen anything published reguarding it. The normally accepted range is around .010"-.015", I think.

IMHO, I would replace the yokes if you are going in the diff. The common problem is that they wear on the spyder gear shaft. Mine were worn down to the snap rings and my diff was making quite a racket on stops and starts. You know the old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'm with Joel Adams on not finding the spec for movement, so I'd replace the yokes.

Dave

Thanks for the info, I'll probably just replace the seals for now, there is almost no play in the yokes, the car has been sitting since pretty much before I was born and supposedly has only 75k on it, at least thats what the odometer shows and the previous owner said.