REAR MAIN SEAL REPLACEMENT. If you have a oil leak that is showing signs between the bellhousing and the engine block, it most likely is your rear
rear main seal. These seals can be rope, neopreme or rubber, and develop leakage after a new engine rebuild,
or after years of use.
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1/15/2007 The rear main seal, seals the crankshaft from spilling the engine oil out the back of the block. Here are some steps that hopefully help you. To start with lets take a look at the seal we are talking about. In this picture, you see the oil pan removed, and the MAIN CAP on the crankshaft removed.
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1/15/2007 In my case, I couldn't get the new seal on without having to pull the engine out. If you can get your crankshaft to drop a bit by loosening the main caps, then you won't have to pull the engine. In my case, I needed to pull the engine out. See steps on the HOW TO REMOVE ENGINE, as you see here, I only needed to pull it about an inch to get the crank to drop.
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1/22/2007 You will need to drop your oil pain. Note: you will need a new gasket as well as the Main Seal, so be sure you purchase that as well. Be sure to clean up the edges as well. Here you see I removed the pan, and cleaned the old gasket as well.
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1/22/2007 The main cap is at the back of the block. You need to remove these two bolts completely and pull that main cap piece off the block. Be sure you bring a towel and wipe off the crank area of oil, otherwise it will be dripping in your face.
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1/22/2007 Here the main cap is pulled off with the seal installed. After we inspected it, it looked a little worn, even though it was newly installed.
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1/22/2007 Here you see a difference in the seals. The one on the right came with a Victor seal kit. The one on the left, is a Felpro seal. The Felpro seal is the seal of choice by the G503'ers
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1/22/2007 Ideally, if your crank has dropped a little by removing the rear main cap, and loosening up the others, after soaking the seal in oil, the seal should be able to slip around the crank. Starting the seal into its slot, wedging with a screwdriver, and maybe someone turning the crank as well. In this picture, this was as far as I got, before pulling the engine out, to get the crank to drop more.
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1/22/2007 Well, like shown in the first picture, once the engine was pulled about an inch out, the crank dropped, and the seal went it pretty easily. here you see that both top and bottom seals are in, and the rear main cap can be installed back in. I put a little silicon sealer on both sides of the cap, so that it would stop and minor leaks.
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1/22/2007 Now install the main cap back on, you see it seal sit on this pretty easily. I looked down the plug holes (2 of them), and saw that there was a little sealer ready for the plugs to be installed with the pan. So now the pan is ready to go on.
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1/22/2007 Here is a note: we applied additional sealer on the main cap areas to help stop leakage. Applying sparenly on the sides of the cap, will spill over into the the cynlidrical areas where the rubber seal is inserted.
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1/22/2007 Normally you don't need to put sealer on both sides of the gasket. Because I was so frustrated with this leak, I want to take out any potential leaks in the future. By putting the sealer on, I am now accepting the fact I will need to replace the gasket anytime I pull the pan.
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1/22/2007 Here the pan and pulley shield are installed, so just push the engine back into place and reconnect everything. The overall job, ended up taking about 8 hours with 2-3 people. If I had to do it over again, it would take about 3hrs to remove engine, 1 hr to replace seal, and 2 hrs to replace engine by myself.
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