SteveZ Z-28

I replaced the timing cover seals and gasket, along with the oil pan gasket on my car. When I ran my car for a while after I had done this, oil was dripping out of the front of the engine (fairly slow drip). It looks like one of the seals on the timing cover is leaking. I think that it is the front main seal, but I won't be able to tell until I pull the hub back off tonight. I have another hub seal to put on it. I was wondering if I had done something wrong when I installed it. I put some grease around the seal and the balancer before I pressed it back on. Was I not supposed to put grease on it and install the seal dry? Or did I not put enough grease on? Oh, and I was using the Fel-Pro timing cover set. The optispark and the crankshaft balancer seals were soft rubber and the water pump seal was a hard rubber seal. I think that I put grease on the optispark seal and put oil on the water pump seal. Any ideas?

madwolf

You may have ripped the waterpump seal. Happens very often.

SteveZ Z-28

I don't think that I did. The first seal that I tried I messed up. The second one I stretched out with my fingers and with oil and then put a socket about the size of the water pump shaft in the seal hole while I put gasket sealer on the timing cover gasket. Right before I put the timing cover on I popped the socket out and put the cover on--slid right on unlike the other time when I had to use force to get it on (when I messed up the first seal).

Also, I looked up there with a small mirror and it looks like there is no oil above the crankshaft balancer hub seal. But I will verify that tonight when I take the hub off.

Slamhound

It is way too easy to rip or deform the water pump seal. Use the install tool or wrap the the water pump driveshaft with electrical tape. Fel Pro timing cover seal set costs about $7.50

my $.02

Jon

SteveZ Z-28

Well, I took off the crankshaft balancer. It looks like only the balancer hub is leaking, but it is hard to tell with the optispark in the way. So, I am going to take the whole thing apart again and see exactly what is leaking. Only way to tell for sure I guess...

You're right, the water pump seal is way too easy to mess up. I hope that I didn't screw it up though. I don't want to deal with that again. If I do have to mess with it again, I'm going to make my own install tool for it. I already have an idea of how to do it. I didn't use it before because I figured my way worked. I still think that it's not the water pump seal, but you never know I guess...

I think one of the reasons that the water pump seal is so easy to rip is because of the design of the inner seal. I looked closely at the one that I messed up and the seal is actually striated (not sure if that's the right spelling) on the inside (ribbed is another way to say it). It looks like the actually valleys inbetween the ribs are fairly thin. So basically if you have any horizontal flex on the seal, you are screwed--it will rip.

More work tomorrow hopefully... I already drained the coolant and took out the right side block plug/knock sensor and got coolant everywhere, so I just have to take out the left side block plug. Oh, and I was wondering, what's the best way to get out the left side block plug? I tried to get it out before but never did because I couldn't ever get anything in there to turn it. It would be a lot easier if you take out the left side motor mount through bolt, but I'm not about to do that.

Zepher

I damaged 3 waterpump seals. So I went with an Electric pump.

On my friends LT1 we put one of those saver sleeves over the hub to give the hub a nice new sealing surface. The stainless seal is about $6.00 at an auto parts store.
We also went Electric on his as well so we wouldn't have to mess with the water pump drive shaft seal.

94 TA TT2S

I had the same ordeal when I changed my wp and opti had a pretty good leak going on ....turned out it was the water pump seal.....It didn't look like it was coming from there but it was definately it....I also did the sleeve on the hub thinking it was the culprit but it was in fact the waterpump seal it was coming down the back of the opti and dripping off the bottom mkaing me think it was being slung off the cranklshaft hub.....but after a few time of checking this out it was indeed the waterpump seal....I even went as far as to get a whole new timing cover with seals already installed

atljar

The seal says right on it it "install dry". No grease or anything like that

SteveZ Z-28

Took off the water pump and found that the water pump seal was not the culprit. Turns out it was the optispark seal in the timing cover. (Keep in mind this is a non-vented optispark on a 1994.) Now, the question is, what did I do wrong? When I put the new seal in I used a block of wood and then hit on it lightly with a hammer to evenly seat all sides. It looked to me like it was seated evenly on the cover before I reinstalled it. When I took the seal out it looked like it had been riding to one side more. I put in a new optispark driveshaft when I put everything back together. The optispark was installed correctly as well. I did put some grease on the seal before I put the optispark driveshaft into the timing cover. Could that have been the problem? And now that I have the seal out and want to put a new one in, how would I go about that without taking the timing cover off? Since I'd be working at it vertically I'm not really sure what the best way to install the new seal would be so that it would seat evenly on all sides. Should I just try and use a socket?

Thanks for the help.