intermediate shaft cover leak

[sleepdoc]

Hi

My 86 3.2l has a small oil leak from the intermediate shaft cover.
What exactly would I see under the cover? Can I remove the cover, and replace the seal without draining the oil?

thanks Mark

[GIBSON]

Mark, first be sure you're not getting oil from the nose bearing seal working it's way down onto the intermediate shaft cover. This is probably more often the case than the cover leaking. Also, oil can seap around the case from the o-ring inside the case halves, around the nose bearing.
If you're sure it's the intermediate shaft, jack up the car, support the engine on jack stands, remove the rear engine mount bar and mount cover plate. With the engine angle you will have, you can remove the cover plate and have little engine oil come out.
You will need a new cover plate gasket and the gasket sealing compound of your choice.
I've had good luck surfacing the cover plate on a large, flat piece of thick glass. Place some sandpaper on the glass and flatten the mating surface of the cover. Also, be sure the case halves meet and form a flat surface as well.
Torque new 6mm nylock nuts down to 5 or 6 ft./lbs. It should do the trick

Bruce Herrmann

[ChrisBennet]

sleepdoc,
I suspect that the leak is higher than that. The nose bearing O-ring or the pulley seal perhaps. It certainly won't hurt anything to change the O-ring for the intermediate shaft cover and maybe you'll get lucky. (Your '86 has an O-ring instead of a gasket.)
Part # 999 707 315 40.

-Chris

[sleepdoc]

Thanks Bruce and Chris.

I am pretty sure the leak is from the cover. The case and flanges above are dry and my engine is really clean so it is easy to feel
above and around and be convinced of new oil.

Bruce thanks for the removal info. This engine is backward from your usual, in my 914 6 conversion, but has no mount in the way and I can certainly jack the car up in front on jack stands to get a good angle to simulate your description.

best Mark

[GIBSON]

Sounds good Mark, and Chris is right, of course. I forgot about the later cover going to the o-ring. Same procedure though. I hope the leak is from the cover plate, although the seal is pretty easy to replace as well. It's just the o-ring on the nose bearing that takes a bit more work.....

Bruce

[KTL]

I recall others saying that the crank end seal (not o-ring) doesn't go bad too often. Most likely it's the int. shaft cover. Probably would be a good idea to put some silicone grease or the like (e.g. Dow Corning 111/112, Sil-Glyde) to lubricate/protect the o-ring. Might allow the o-ring to live a little longer this time. When you get the o-ring out, you'll find it's pretty dried out. I used a little bit of Curil T to seal the mating surfaces of the cover and case as well. Stays sticky for a long time so it shouldn't overly-bond the two together.

Just my limited experience with that job (i've done it one time).