front oil seal leaking {crank seal? cam seal}

[cosmic_splatter]

Dynabill,

I have a bit of oil coming out of the front somewhere on my engine. I think new seals are in my future. How many hours did it take you to replace the seals? Did you use any special tools? How tough was that crank nut?

thanks,
John

[fixkick]

the first to leak is the valve cover gasket and leaks unseen down the front of engine hidden by covers.
or the crank cog bolt is loose. never set to 94ft/bls
then cranks seal then cam seal.
what is true cause takes inspections. did you pull back the cover like this and peek.?

this i all covered in the timing belt page.
http://www.fixkick.com/t-belt/tbelt-index.html

here is the peep page. look behind cam cog
http://www.fixkick.com/t-belt/sneak-a-peek.html

[dynabill]

Dynabill,

I have a bit of oil coming out of the front somewhere on my engine. I think new seals are in my future. How many hours did it take you to replace the seals? Did you use any special tools? How tough was that crank nut?

thanks,
John

Hi cosmic, I think if you had everything you needed when you went to do this job, you could prob have it done in eight hours or so. If you are stripping the engine that far down, you may as well replace the water pump, timing belt, idler and do both seals. buy an extra one in the event you screw one up (speaking from experience)They are usally the same seal, for crank and cam. as for special tools, I took a piece of pvc and ground it down on a belt sander to meet the radius I needed to drive the seal in. Its a pain in the ass, but can be done with some patience. It is hard to get a square hit on the pvc that far down in the motor cavity, even with the radiator removed.
As for the crank nut, I have tried kixfixs method of standing on the brake and have had little success. I use a method that I know kixfix will frown on. I use a chain wrench to hold the crank pulley, and then undo the bolt with a socket. Its usually a two person job. If there are any marks left from the chain wrench, I file and sand them, so there isn't any rough surfaces to shorten the life of the belts.
Oh and one other thing, make sure you use a gasket sealer on the water pump gasket, both sides, I failed to do this, and the water pump gasket leaked. so I had to tear it down again and ended up replacing the water pump again, as a safety measure. although I did that in under five hours. lol
best of luck Bill

[cosmic_splatter]

Bill,

It sounds like a pretty big job then. Sounds like the most difficult things are removing the crank bolt and installing the seals without damaging them.

Where did you get your parts from? Do you still have the part nums?

thanks,
John

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ps. Why didn't the parking brake/5th gear trick work?

[dynabill]

Bill,

It sounds like a pretty big job then. Sounds like the most difficult things are removing the crank bolt and installing the seals without damaging them.

Where did you get your parts from? Do you still have the part nums? rock auto FEL-PRO TCS45895 crank seal
FEL-PRO VS50473R Valve Cover Gasket
timing belt kit from rock auto (gates kit)
water pump from rock auto
you can also check NAPA, they are great at getting these parts.
John


thanks,

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ps. Why didn't the parking brake/5th gear trick work? it seems like the motor keeps rolling backwards, even tho it is chocked and brakes are stepped on hard I had it work once last year, but hasn't been successful since. I always try it tho.

Good luck hope I helped some. cheers Bill

[fixkick]

the front cog will come off in 5th gear.
but if its way too tight, from loctite or crazy man with impact gun, then its too tight. 94ft/lbs is the new spec.
I always try taking it off by hand first. (do no harm first) then the RAD comes out, this one fact makes the job super easy (NO RAD)
heck with a new water pump there is no coolant, so take out the rad. its super easy to do.

then use heat on the nut, and hit it with the Impact gun, on low, (again, go easy and work up to harder)
one guy hit on max, (had loctite) and stripped the crank threads, killing the crank. <<< do not gorilla the bolt)
5th gear will be a tad spongy, but ive sat there with my huge 1/2 drive breaker bar. and hit 200ft.lbs, CCW. easy, and it typical this # after 60k miles....
200 is my limit, then comes, heat or heat cycling it 2 times. then with it hot do 200. oops it turned, oops it was that extra hard locktite, some ar 300F rated.
thermal cycles break the bond.. and hot makes loctite break free.
go easy and win.

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keep in mind this one fact
if the car is say still stock, say no belt change ever. and remember the bolt does not need to come off with the belt. (only at seal change)
that it may be at 50 pounds, (dead wrong) and most of these cars the bolt nearly falls out.
50 was the stock setting in the last year 1995, 1996 is the date of the TSB correcting that blunder.
what i do, day one, is check my bolt 1st, see how much torque it takes to spin the bolt CCW
my belt pages explains this logic.
if the bolt was at 50 or less the key gets inspected.
if its way over 100, or at spec, i leave it be.
so??? it takes only 15min to check that. I use my beam torsion torque wrench that works backwards, to do that. its a spec.. suzuki test.

[cosmic_splatter]

fixkick,

If you have 4x4, would it be a good idea to engage the 4x4 system? Seems like it would give you more resistance. Or, is this overkill?

Also, how do you remove the cam bolts without spinning the cam? Do you have to do this bolt with the belt on the harmonic balancer? Seems like you could break a valve if you spin the cam while the belt is off.

John

[fixkick]

sure, great idea. put it in 4H.
and lock the manual locking hubs sure.
i find the springing action good, for those using impact hammers it keeps the treads from getting destroyed.
the impacts are way high on all guns.
the avg is less but those spikes can get you in trouble.

very good the 8v the cam has a hole and you use the drive pin, to lock it , this is show on my 8v page
the 16v the front of the head, there is a hex female plug, i used a huge hex key that fits that and it locks the cog.

8v
http://www.fixkick.com/engine/head-pull/...cam-locker


16v quoting head pull page
Cam Cog lockers: (to get the nut off. CCW)
The G16B : The valve cover shouts "16 valves" casted into the top of cover.
(16v has no lock pin hole, seen below, on the 16v we have just behind the cog wheel, on head front a large 10mm tool.
Use a large ALLEN 10mm hex key and lock the cog to the front head rail plug. CCW the cam cog bolt.
(I have 3/8 drive allen key kit, so I used it 10mm and one 3/8" ratchet extention, to lock my cog.)
( some folks just use a Giant screw driver, stuffed in the COG) (be creative! try not to do damage.)