groves in SA rear axel housing

SA rebuild Anyone ever see groves in a seal housing like (i hope the picture is attached) this, three of the 4 rear axle housings I have do not, one does, how can this seal??

Somebody pushed the upper shaft out the wrong direction. Those grooves were cut by the tips of the pinion gear teeth. You can probably get the new seal to seal by adding one of several sealers (form-a-gasket, RTV, etc.)

Being the upper shaft, it doesn't have to seal all that well because it's not submerged in oil at any time. The seal is mostly to keep dirt out, and the little bit of oil that's carried up on the gear teeth that might ooze in that direction, in.

Is pushing the gear out the wrong way a common mistake or something? Since three of the four of his housings have these marks, it must be, or they were all worked on by the same dummy with a 50 ton press.

I'm amazed that the teeth made clean marks. I would have expected the housing to blow out from the pressure.

Dont know if SA is different from A and B but those only go out one way looks like the groves were made to the gear on the diff shaft could slide out. Must have been a production change or something like that.

Just to clarify, only 1 of 4 have the groves, and the groves are not all the way around the housing, they run clock-wise starting at about
2clock running to about 10:00 oclock, approx 75% of housing. they look perfectly machined.

Probably not that hard of a mistake to make.

This picture is looking at the housing from the inner side. The shaft has a snap ring on the outer end to hold the bearing to the shaft. Looking from the outside after the cover is removed, you can see the snap ring and that it is all that keeps the shaft from moving inward (except for the gear not quite fitting through the inner opening). The inner side has a seal in the hole and the whole thing is obscured by the brake drum. One could think that the whole assembly could come out by removing the snap ring and pushing it inward.

If one actually tried that, the oil seal would push out with the gear and the near-fit means the gear teeth cut the grooves as pictured. The interference between the teeth and housing is so slight that the hardened teeth easily cut the cast iron. The force required to cut the grooves is probably very small. Even after removal, the brake drum still needs to be separated to change the seal.

Note that there is a small amount of material that broke out at the end of each groove. That indicates they were cut by something moving from inside the housing towards the center of the tractor.

Thanks Jim,
that might explain why that brake was saturated with lube, (which is what started this whole rebuild in the first place), will look at using a sealer as mentioned to prevent that.