I just recently repaired another northstar engine and now have a slow leak coming from the front crankshaft seal.....I did a complete half case seal along with other goodies....I've done a couple WOT to test the engine out and it runs smooth as silk. After all that fun I realized the passenger side of the cradle was soaked with oil and noticed that there was oil dripping from the dust cover off the balancer...Also this may explain why my belt sounds like its sticking/wet and there is oil splattered everywhere .....The seal is leaking pretty good.....Could this leak be a result of the balancer bolt not being tight enough? Perhaps I installed the front cover crankshaft seal the wrong way or I didnt tighten the bolt enough.
This is unusual. The front cover has locating dowels, so you couldn't really install it incorrectly. The seal only goes on the cover 1 way. I like 89Falcon's idea - clean it all up, then see where it's coming from - might be from somewhere else, and dripping down.
I can not get the seal to go in...I have gone through 2 seals already.....Its a very very tight fit and a socket and hammer still will not work....Help! Any suggestions....RYan
"Do not remove the crankshaft front oil seal.......................install a new engine front cover................front oil seal is not serviced as a separate component.............."
I have used a large socket that is the same size as the seal, and a long threaded bolt that fits the crank threads and use a nut & flat washers with grease or tighten the bolt to get the seal in. YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO COLLAPSE THE FRONT COVER WHILE PRESSING IN THE SEAL. It would be a lot easier if the front cover was taken off and press in the seal with support on the back side. You could get a piece of flat plate drill a hole in it for the crankshaft bolt to go through and use it and the crank shaft bolt to press in the seal. Again do not compress the front cover.
I ended up taking the cover off and installed the seal from the inside...But I still have a leaking seal.......I think there is a flaw in the oil seal....When I redid the engine I installed a new timing cover gasket and new seal...This kit, which included the seal and gasket, was from FELPRO...I then removed the timing cover seal because it was not doing the job of keeping oil in....I finally replaced the seal with a NAPA version and it looks exactly the same. I installed it and behold I have a very tiny leak from the same area...I had all areas of the timing cover sprayed down with cleaner and all was dry....Ran the car for 10 min without PS pump and other items removed...(that would at least assure me it wasn't the PS pump)...Every where around the gasket was dry, except for that stupid seal!
I will say this, that from day one both the FELPRO and NAPA seal made a sandpaper sorta sound that was very noticeable at higer RPMS....I ended up screwing up a couple seals when I was trying to install them from the outside(as you can see I had a lot of problems in the previous posts) The seals that I messed up came from Advance....The advance seals had a springs on the inside while the NAPA/FEL didn't....I installed the new NAPA seal with hollow part towards the engine and the flat part towards outside.
As you can see I will once again have to take the timing cover off and get a different seal....Is there a reason for this?
The thread has been dead for 11 years and the last responder has not logged in for 10. Which Cadillac do you drive on Long Island (Cay?), Bahamas?
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