Bone head move
 

I pulled the engine out of my 84 Carrera to do the fuel lines and degrease / clean everything. I wound up pulling everything off except for the heads and cylinders. I cleaned everything and put back together. All gaskets and seals were replaced as well. It allowed me to get familiar with these engines as I just bought the car 1- 1/2 years ago.

While replacing the rear main seal (flywheel side) I scratched the sealing surface of the crank. I won't mention how I did it as it's far too embarrassing. I don't make great decisions when it's late at night and I'm tired, but that's my favorite time to be in the garage.

I've read that the surfaces of the crank can be polished and scratches can be removed with 600 grit sand paper soaked in WD40.

I have a use crank from a 4.6 DOHC Ford that I'm going to test a few options. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Crank repair sleeves exist for that. I've never used one but I see them every time I buy a crank seal.

Is the Ford crank surface hardened like Porsche's?

I would polish out and see if it leaks. Your talking about where the crank spins inside the Rear main seal. Well I used to mirror polish VW flywheels for that very reason. Admitadly they were not gourged, but my god did those f**kers leak before i started.

In in any case I would certainly just polish it now, and get the engine back in, it may or may not be an issue. If it is, it may or may not be a big deal...only one way to find out.

I would however polish higher up to 3000 grit. If it was inside the case, like the crank itself, kinda different (but not from an external leak perspective), but for where it rides, you might be alright. If not then a crank sleeve as mentioned above

I might as well add, i also learned the hard way to only ever use engine oil on the lips of the oil seal where it rides. I once had a bright idea to use silicone grease...cue engine out and back in a few days later. School of hard knocks.

Interesting. Not that I have done with silicone, but why would that leak? I would think it would wash off pretty quick...

Never saw one for a Porsche...do they make it?

The sleeve things are known as Speedi-Sleeves. I think SKF makes them, probably others, too. Look carefully at the seal wear mark on the crank. Does your boo-boo cut across that? If so, a Speedi-Sleeve would fix it. If you got lucky and missed the line where the old seal was riding, tap a new seal in and call it good.
Do you have a pic of the damage? Even though you *think* it's bad, it might not be bad enough to cause a problem.

Looks like it takes a National 99354 Speedi-Sleeve. About $30, with the installer.

I took 600 grit wet/dry sand paper soaked in WD40. Because the crank is recessed inside the case, I took strips of sand paper about two inches wide and wrapped them around the crank. You can't get your fingers in there so I wrapped rubber bands around the sand paper. I spent about 1/2 hr going back and forth. The rubber bands provided even pressure all the way around. The scratch was very small to start with. I can't really tell if it made a difference or not.

My game plan is to install the rear main seal not so far into the case to allow the seal to ride on the good part of the crank. The cut is very small and toward the case more than the outer edge. I'll have to see how bad it leaks if at all. I want to avoid the sleeve if at all possible.

ha i dont know, i read some time after....never use grease on lip seals (i.e RMS) as the seal surface will overheat and disort where as oil as would normally be there (trace) would cool the seal surface. In any case I only needed to learn that once!! I have not had a problem since, except where a seal would not fix the problem!!