Oil Leak from rebuilt engine

[Randy Webb]

I have a fairly large oil leak from a recently rebuilt 1986 3.2L engine. It's coming from the bell housing.

This suggests to me that it's the flywheel seal. 1. How likely are other posibilities? What else could leak in there?

2. Is there any liklihood that it will "heal itself" once it it run for a while? The engine sat for many months after it was rebuilt (tho it was run a couple or more hours on a dyno before I picked it up).

These are the Al case engines w/o the inherent weakness of the sump plate, and it's had dino oil in it.

[Rot 911]

Unless it is a bad oil thermostat or oil sender o-ring that is bad or missing, my educated guess is also flywheel seal. Not going to heal itself. Pull and replace.

[john walker's workshop]

flywheel seals don't tend to leak much, but maybe the spring was dislodged on assembly. gotta come out though.

[Randy Webb]

Ugh.

Thanks, John. I don't know why this didn't happen on the dyno...

[john walker's workshop]

you would think it would have leaked on the dyno. is the oil coming out of the small notch at the bottom of the bellhousing?

[chrisp]

Think about what's different between install in the car versus the dyno. Hose hook ups? Engine orientation? Maybe there's something that didn't get hooked up correctly upon install or now that the engine ius properly oriented it leaks. It'll help identify where it's coming from at least.