Crank Seal Oil Leak

[LD3]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this page but I can happily say I'm the new owner of an awesome 1986 Tercel 4wd (thanks again dlb).

After reading up on other oil leak issues, I have cleaned the engine and new oil appears to be leaking from the crank seal (running down and along the top of the oil pan). Before I start pulling things apart I was wondering why other the upper timing belt cover has a gasket but not the bottom? Is this job possible by only removing the lower cover or do both need to come off and new gaskets go on?

Thanks, Luke

[dlb]

hi luke, welcome to the forum!

i'm not sure why the upper timing belt cover has a gasket while the bottom doesn't. both covers just keep rocks and crap out so a perfect seal isn't crucial.

i can't remember but i believe the upper t-belt cover has to come off before the lower one. it's only a few more bolts though. and like i said, you won't have to replace any other seals because of removing the t-belt cover.

i'm really looking forward to you getting reggie back in fighting shape. it's worth it, i think.

[xirdneh]

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10640&p=78755&hilit ... elt#p78754

[Petros]

Welcome to the forum!

if you are having to replace the lower seal, you should also replace the timing belt (they do not cost much), unless you know how old the exiting one is. you might also consider the upper cam seal as well, though that one is easy to get to compared to the lower seal, if the upper seal is still soft and pliable than I would leave it, if not it is easy to replace when you have it apart tio replace the lower seal.

Also, most mechanics recommend replacing the water pump, but on this car it is easy to reach without taking too many parts off. If there is evidence water pump is leaking or going bad, now would be a good time to replace it. However if it appears good I would just leave it. I find I get a bout 100k miles on a new water pump. The re-manufactured ones are junk and I would not waste any time with them.

good luck.

[LD3]

Thanks for the help guys!

I was thinking the same thing about the timing belt and ordered one. However, I don't know much about water pumps. Will it be noticeable if it's leaking? Also what are signs it's going bad? As for the cam seal, do I just remove the bolt/gear and swap out the old one? If so, that seems fairly simple- any known issues I might run into?

I also ordered a new timing cover seal but after David's response I think that might have been a waste.

Thanks again.

[Petros]

cam seal is easy, you have to remove the sprocket (the only tricky part is holding the cam from turning, I use a large screw driver through the spokes of the sprocket). You can either pop the seal out with a small lever tool (like a screw driver, or a hooked tool you can make from a large nail), or you can remove the front cam bearing cap and it fall out. I like to put a light layer of gasket sealer around the outside of all seals to help "glue" it in place. Not too much, but my old auto shop teach taught us this in 1973 (when the neoprene seals were new on cars), and it has helped me several times when on old engines with lots of crank case pressure (due to worn rings allowing a lot of blow by), pushed out the oil seals at both ends of the crank and the cam shaft!

The water pump should have NO play at all in the shaft. if it does it means the bearing is going out and it will soon wipe out the seal and leak all of the coolant out. there is also a drain hole on the underside of the water pump housing, if there are stains around this hole from coolant seeping out, it also means the water pump seal is giving up. In either case the water pump will completely fail in a short time, not worth risking running it until it fails. if you find either condition replace the coolant pump,otherwise it will likely hold up fine for many miles. NAPA has a good price on a Japanese made AISIN coolant pump with a lifetime guarantee.

I once had a junk remanufactured coolant pump fail. It shredded it self apart when the bearing failed, which also wiped out the seal and blew the coolant out of the engine. the metal shards got circulated through the heater core and almost new radiator, plugging them up with metal shavings. It it took many hours of acid soaking and back washing the heater core to get heat in the car, and $80 to have the radiator taken apart and the tubes clean out. I tried the acid flush in the radiator but it was too badly plugged up. Not worth waiting for a water pump to fail, and not worth using junk remanufactured parts, or parts made by communists in china.

[LD3]

Thanks Petros,

I got some parts today and I'm hoping to start work sometime this week. I'll keep you guys posted.

[atoyta]

Look at the crank seal sealing surface on the crank, if it has a groove where the seal rides on the crank you may have to install a speedi sleeve & matching seal. The sleeve goes on the crank & creates a smooth surface for the seal edge to ride on.

[Petros]

I have found that if the seal seat is not too badly worn I can use some fine wetndry paper on the surface and smooth it out (600 or 800 grit). If it is severely grooved the sleeve repair may be the only way to stop it from leaking.

[LD3]

Yeah I bought a speedi-sleeve just in case. But everything looked pretty good (assuming I was looking for the right signs) so I'll go and return it.

I installed new seals with a little grease to help out and (almost) everything went perfect. The timing gear had a chunk of the back flange cracked off and was VERY difficult to remove. After a few custom tool builds, a few hours and some heat I finally got it off but broke another piece off the back in the process. Now I have a new one on order and I'll let you guys know how the re-install goes.

[LD3]

Also the reason the gear was so hard to remove was rust. So I also cleaned the crank with some 1000grit and the old gear and woodruff key fit great (lets hope the new gear does as well).

[xirdneh]

i have some of those gears for cost of shipping
warming the gear up with propane torch helps sometimes

[LD3]

Oh thanks for the offer xirdneh but I was able to get one fairly cheap and wanted to get everything back together by this weekend.

[dlb]

what condition was the timing belt in, luke? any visible cracking? i don't remember ever checking it when i first got the car.

[LD3]

Honestly, it looked totally fine. However, I had already bought a new one for 18$ and figure I would still use it so I know exactly when it got a new belt.