Howard, sorry for the late response. I missed this post till now. The "final drives" you are having a problem with have internal seals that generally go bad after a while. With 5000 hours on the machine I'd say they are due. My suggestion is to remove each side as an assembly and drop them off at your dealer. This will save you some labor and pick up and delivery cost. It may be just a re-seal job that should run you around 300 bucks as long as the bearings and gears are in good shape. If you want to give it a shot yourself as long as you have the manual and some patience you can probably handle it. It's just that sometimes they can be a little tricky if you have never done them before.
