Tired of Rear Main Leak

Psychopete · May 13, 2011

I have an engine to swap into my car, rear main leaked @ 140K, but wasn't that bad. The crankshaft has a groove from the seal riding on it. Can't make up my mind if I want to sleeve it.

The original engine to the car has 188K and I changed the rear main to no avail. It still leaked between the engine & trans (even dyed the oil to verify), so now I am going to drop the engine with 140K into the car. Just wanted to get an opinion if I should try and sleeve the crankshaft, or just install the seal and pray to god I don't have to pull this stupid engine back out of the car.

There has to be a solution for this short of getting a new crankshaft. Opening the oil pan is opening a can of worms that I've opened before, and would rather not do again (pan bolts to the transmission bellhousing and the gasket is simply a tube of RTV).

snoranger · May 13, 2011

If the sealing surface has a groove, sleeve it. You dont want to go through all that work, just to have the same problem.

Psychopete · May 13, 2011

Thanks for the response. Just searching around, some use them, others say not to use them. Then people saying they had a grooved crank with no issues with just using a new seal. Can't get a very clear answer, but I may just go a head and sleeve it. Pulling the engine (fwd) from the top of the car, so that makes things a lot harder, so I definitely want to get it right.

BlackBII · May 13, 2011

I sleeved the crank on my starions motor when I rebuilt it. 10K miles with no issues as of yet.

The machine shop that did my rods and crank say they sleeve them all the time, without ever having any problems.

I say do it. I mean, what problems is it going to cause?

noahkenny · May 13, 2011

Been using those speedy sleeves as we call them in the heavy equipment field for about 20 years now and have never had a problem with them. They are a little expensive but really worth every penny. It can take a little practice putting them on. I work for Cat and just about all our crankshaft seals have the sleeves built into them. They are called hydrodynamic seals and take a special seal installer to install the seal and sleeve all at once. I think that some of the auto manufactures are using them now a days.

robertc1024 · May 13, 2011

I agree with sleeving it. I used one of the Speedi Sleeves on a rear axle that was leaking diff fluid into the drum. Worked like a charm.

snoranger · May 13, 2011

In my line of work we use speedi-sleeves on alot of things. (forklift and heavy equipment repair) Its not unusual to have machines with 20-30k hours on it. Stuff wears out, sleeves are cheap, and work great.

We have one forklift with over 50k hours on it (25,000 lb capacity = Not cheap to replace). Everything that has a seal has a sleeve by now.

adsm08 · May 13, 2011

Throw a speedy sleeve in, seal it, and go. They usually work, and when they don't its usually because the crank is grooved that badly.

Psychopete · May 14, 2011

Thanks for the responses. Didn't get a chance to sleeve it today, spent most of the day dealing with a broken EGR tube and switching over new parts from the old engine. And had to mow. Having a party tonight and it's about that time, back is smoked, time for a drink. Going to go for it first thing tomorrow morning.

Psychopete · May 18, 2011

Had to drop the pan and pull the water pump. Did I mention how much I hate scraping RTV? :annoyed:

But crank is sleeved, engine is in the car, pan is on, water pump is back on, and have the engine dampner back on. Hard to get time at night after work, but hopefully will be back on the road by this weekend. Tired of working on this thing..

Destroyer000 · May 18, 2011

ok iam going to sound like an artard.. i bought a speedy sleeve last year when i did my motor.. was a few extra bucks.. we installed it had the motor in the truck for a bit and boy did it leak oil out the sleeve...i dont think it was installed correctly for it to be doing that... whats the correct way to install a speedy sleeve?

Psychopete · May 19, 2011

I hope that's not the fate of mine!

I think at that point, it's time to get rid of the car! Crankshaft replacement would be my only option - I have a good crank that I could have machined, but I just don't have the time to this again.

A lot recommend using sealants or cement for bad cranks, I used loctite.

Did you oil the seal prior to installation? Any issues with the install in general, anything that would have possibly caused problems with the spring inside the seal that secures it against the crank?

Did you end up taking out the engine and checking it out again? Sure it wasn't a plug or pan gasket?

Destroyer000 · May 19, 2011

ya i pulled the motor back out and put in a regular seal.. didnt leak.. now my front one does haha

Psychopete · May 31, 2011

It's been good so far with the sleeve. Temp was rising, but not going down. Has a "new" water pump, known good radiator, clean coolant, and the fan was working fine. Actually all of those parts are used but just not that old or known to be fine, even reused the coolant..

Temp would rise even on a strait away, thermostat came to mine and it came out in several pieces when I took it apart.

But it's purring.... like a kitten now. Had another t-stat to put in lying around, just had to buy a gasket. Hopefully will get some mileage out of this piece, this swap was by far the cheapest engine swap I have done to date lol.

Tired of Rear Main Leak

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