Rear Main Crank Seal Leaking After Renewal Twice.

[colti 5]

Replaced as part of rear bearing cap side seal renewal.

Original symptoms were that it leaked whilst standing.

Now chucking out when engine running.

Am running with level at dipstick half mark.4.5 ltrs of oil.

Though wondering if tilted engine is now meaning it's overfilled at halfway mark.

BTW it's running a 306 16v XSI alloy sump,pump and dipstick.

[Tom Fenton 1,526]

Are you sure it's the main seal and not the cap side seals, often called the hockey sticks?

[colti 5]

Hi Tom.

Well yes I originally had the sump off to replace the Hockey seals.It's always weeped whilst standing since day one.

Removed the gearbox,flywheel and cleaned off the area.

After 2 hours oil could be seen seeping from the hockey seals.

On stripping I found the end feet had separated from the stems,presumably I must have done that when I rebuilt the engine 8 years ago.

Thing is after renewing the hockey seals i rebuilt the sump,rear main seal and refilled it with oil(with the gearbox off and found it to be oil tight when standing.

On stripping the flywheel off the second time oil leakage can now clearly be seen from the rear crank seal.Also noted slight up and down movement at the rear of the crankshaft.Dismissed it as oil pressure was always ok so rebuilt it with another crank seal.

However to ensure I hadn't overfilled the motor with oil I drained it and refilled it with 4 ltrs,just over the min mark on the dipstick and to my horror its now lost oil pressure.

It's generally only been used as a track car(prob 10 track days and Minimal road use) so 8k of being driven hard over 8 years.

Think it may be time for a rebuild.

Suppose its better it went like this than going bang in a shower of conrods!!

Edited November 4, 2016 by colti