Suspected duff rear oil seal

[brixworth-alan]

Hi All, there's a load of oily crud all in the base of bell housing and around the clutch on my 2.25 petrol engine. I've read that this normally means that theres a leak in the crankshaft oil seal- is that likely to be the case for me and if so is it easy to fix?

cheers
Alan

[bogie]

10 min job mate,whip the fly wheel off prize the seal out with out damaging the crank,clean the crank and tap a new seal in which costs about a quid!!

[brixworth-alan]

Sounds good- went to buy the seal and i have a choice of 3 bearing or 5 beraing engines. How do i discover which I have?

cheers

Alan

[TBM]

Sounds good- went to buy the seal and i have a choice of 3 bearing or 5 beraing engines. How do i discover which I have?

cheers

Alan

http://glencoyne.co.uk/engno.htm

This will tell you what you have by engine number. The 3 brg oil (T) seal is a much more fiddly thing to change!

[brixworth-alan]

Rats- its a 3 bearing unit.

[baron von ledwidge]

I just did my 3 bearing engine on sunday, not to bad a job tho saying that i will let you know if it all stays dry.  Basically the way i did it was to remove the flywheel, flywheel casing, sump and rear main bearing holder, then the top half of the seal, then split the seal being careful withthe spring.  Then re fitted it, not a bad job if the engine i out just remmeber to have a torque wrench for the main bearings etc.

[brixworth-alan]

Cheers- how come the sump needed to come off? I have the flywheel off- i'm guessing I need to turn the crankshaft so the little cutout lines up with the bolts in the shell so it can be split and removed?

[baron von ledwidge]

i removed the rear main bearing seat which formed half of the seal seat, this way i could fit the seal and then use the main bearing seat to compress it, i didn't want to risk pushing it in and messing it up. I guess you may be able to do it without but it made the job pretty easy. i was changing the oil anyways and the filter so it wasn't much extra hassle

[brixworth-alan]

Cheers- job's halfway through as the old one is out- it was a bit brittle so hopefully that caused the leak. I have  a question however- my retainer halves both have a load of dark red loctite-type sealant spread liberally all over the faces and between the joins- over time (and me taking it off) this has cracked and flaked; is this stuff actually doing anything or would i be better off without?The manual doesnt refer to it and i've not seen a picture of a new one anywhere so can't compare it.

cheers

Alan

[baron von ledwidge]

Oh right not too sure, mine had no retaining screws in the plates when i removed it so i fitted some afterwards with some locking selant as they didnt feel like the most amaizing fit.  but thta was only in the bolt holes im not too sure on the sealant you refer too sorry,  I didnt use anythign as long as it fits nicely you shoul dbe ok, just be careful when fittign it and make sure it is seated tightly, i put the split ast the top fitted the spring then the bottom plate, the one that goed over the crakshaft main bearing once this went in it squeezed the seal together nicely.  I then fitted the top plate made usre it was sealed and then secured the plate in with screws and torqued the main bearings.  The it was just a case of flywheel housing and flywheel on and the sump, not a bad job really. took abotu 20 mins i think once the engine was out and that was goign nice and steady as i had no idea what i was doing.