legacycentral bbs

So, Races are on Sunday; I come back from the autoparts store on Friday night, ToDo List:

Replace driverside CV axle
Replace oil pan gasket
Replace rear main seal
Clean up leaking seperator plate covers on rear of block
Swap in new hotness (clutch, pressure plate, flywheel + accessories) in place of old-n-busted.

So, I work this list in no particular order; I figure easiest thing on time is to attach the engine to the hoist, disconnect the necessary cabling and wires and hoses/etc, remove radiator to lift engine up and forward about six inches.

I do this, I think "hey, great time saver" so I'm removing the old clutch, I pry out the old rear main seal. What a bitch, even for it coming out - total PITA; wasn't sure I was going to get it.

Fast foward to five minutes later (it's 1:30AM at this point) my new rear main doesn't fit; I try everything including cranking the new flywheel down over the rear main to make it set, but it doesn't; I tear the new one (the only one I have) in some pretty serious spots, so I'm not sure of it's worthiness now.

As I'm trying to figure out WTF is going on, I inspect the block seat for the seal closely and notice... wtf... WTF?! there's an old seal in there! packed in!

It seems the grease monkey that did this job previously just hammered a new (smaller) seal over the old one and called it a day; unlucky for me because I don't have one of these small ones to play with.

So, I'm hammering, chiseling, you name it, even took the cutoff wheel and tried to cut a notch in the outer portion of the block seat so that I could get behind the seal, the seal just breaks off as i chip at it, never giving me anything to get ahold of for the rest of the seal.

I'm so fucking pissed, this is twice I've had an odd issue with the ass end of this block (first time around was an input shaft broken off in the rear of the crank that I had to drill out)

So here I am, dirty as a shop mechanic with not nearly as much work completed; engine half-assed out of the car, unable to proceed.

I tried a blow torch (block is a really good heatsink) too, no such luck.

I don't know what to do, I don't have a spare seal, so I've got to make do with the one that's slightly damaged, or pray O'Reillys looks good upon me because of my recent business with them and makes a delivery to my house (assuming they have the part in stock, had to special order it last time)


Any clues on getting this seal out before I go crazy? It's 5:45AM and I'm done for the morning, I'll wake up in the afternoon hopefully with some good responses here...

drill a couple of holes in the seal then screw in the largest sheet metal screws you can get in there and pull on those with some pliers.

subytech wrote:drill a couple of holes in the seal then screw in the largest sheet metal screws you can get in there and pull on those with some pliers.

afraid not, the flat surface of the seal no longer exists, I'm only dealing with the sleeve part that is stuck in the engine

well after finally pulling the engine out and getting a really close look, plus pressure washing it, I realized that what I was hammering on with a chizel was not a ring of the seal, but some sort of seat the seal sits on; either way.

I took the new (somewhat damaged seal) and hammered it in with a wooden dowel gently, shearing off a good chunk of rubber on one outer side of it, then took my high-temp RTV and gooped the entire thing up on the outside; if it doesn't hold, it doesn't hold. it only takes me ~1 hour to pull the engine now that I've done it so many times.

If it doesn't hold, it'll leak - but it shouldn't leak BAD, the entire area isn't under pressure.


anyway, the separator plates are held in by Phillips head screws which I can't loosen - assuming that's a good thing and my leak is coming from the oil pan and the rear main (now the rear main probably isn't fixed, but I'm so sick of fucking with it I couldn't care anymore)

you need to walk away from it for a little while when it gets like that.

206er wrote:you need to walk away from it for a little while when it gets like that.

I did, I went to bed at 5AM and came back to it this morning and pulled the engine.


No less frustrated of course.

Sounds like a speedy sleeve. Its like a wear ring that installs on the rotating part to account for a groove previosly made by the old seal. They're used a lot on diesels. Only thing is, you need a special seal to use it correctly (smaller I.D.). I've never heard of one for an automotive application, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Oh, and use a manual impact for the sperator plate screws. And its a good practice to silicone the O.D. of the rear main before installation.

okay, I finished up at about 11PM tonight, 3 hours over my projected finish time of 8PM...

Gave up on the driver side CV axle since I didn't have a socket to fit it, my 30mm was 1 or 2mm short, thinking two here; regardless. I'll tackle it next weekend.

I'll post later about the race clutch I installed/etc; safe to say it's an ACT pressure plate, flywheel, and 4 puck sprung; HOLY ISHY does it chatter at low rpms; you really gotta give it the slip and feather at about ~2500rpms to get off to a no-chatter start.

It's not bad, I probably won't stick with it, but meh.