Front main seal HELP!!
 

My nice dry 3.2 engine sprung a leak at the track last weekend.

Its slinging oil around the front crankshaft pulley, which I'm guessing means a main seal failure. Its not a serious leak [yet] but its sure making a mess around the fan belt area, and carrying oil onto the fanbelt pulley, which is not good.

- is this seal fixable without splitting the case?
- is there anything else around this area which may be the source?

Will need to drop the engine to really confim the source, but need to know hwat I'm in for before starting on this. I've rebuilt the top end recently, so the idea of splitting the case so soon after the rebuild is killing me!

I'm not too familar with 3.2's but I believe the following to be the case:
Possible sources of leak:
(1) Crankshaft seal, can be replaced without dropping engine.
(2) Intermediate shaft cover plate gasket, can be replaced without dropping engine.
(3) No. 8 nose bearing o-ring; drop engine and split case to fix.
(4) Case seam leaking; drop engine and split case to fix.


You do not need to drop the engine to confirm simply support the engine and remove rear mounts and muffler and inspect the area in question. If you get this far, ask about talcum powder for leak detection.

Sometimes a provisional fix can be done for (3) and (4) by cleaning (degreasing) the area well and sealing with some type of epoxy or other similar compund.

Good luck, Jim

sounds familiar
 

I had a pretty good (bad) leak in the same area and I thought that it was the crank seal but after I got to it it didn't look bad. After the work, I replaced it anyways. There is also a small o ring deal under the crank pulley.

At the track last week, I got the confirmation that it was not the crank seal. My leak was coming from the oil lines at the pressure sender connection, and running down the case seam like it was coming from the pulley. I manged up the sender trying to get it off before I figured that the connections were loose. Check my post from yesterday about that topic, someone posted a great picture. The inner bolt is 17mm and the compression nut is 14. Hope for the best!

Alan

Thanks guys. I won't be able to pull the pulley cover and have a close look until the weekend, but you've given me some hope that it won't be a case split [if I'm lucky].

I would certainly try to check/replace the pulley seal before splitting the case, and the talcum powder is a capitol idea, never thought of that...

It would be odd for the #8 bearing o-ring to go suddenly, more likely to be the seal... How many miles on the motor since it was built?

Chris,
The top end [down to Rod bearings] was done the winter of 2001/2002, but I did not split the case. The bottom end has 162Kmiles.

I'll need to find a diagram that shows the seal arrangement to know what I'm looking for when I pull the pulley! Pelican has the 3.0 diagrams but the 3.2 may be slightly different??

My vote is for the intermediate shaft cover o-ring.

It's an easy fix once you get the engine carrier out of the way. Put the motor sump on a jackstand with some padding and go to town.

Here's some diagrams from 1985.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads/crankseal85.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads/intseal85-3.jpg