Front seal leaking this bad?

[Dantheman1540]

Over the last week or two I’ve noticed an oil leak has popped up and seemed to have gotten much worse rapidly. Today I pulled it into the shop and oil was dripping from everywhere! It looked about a quart low and I had only driven 20miles since I got gas in the morning and the oil level was full then. I has led it up and let it idle and it appeared to be coming from the front crank seal. I installed a new pan gasket when the motor was out and it hadn’t leaked till just recently.

Is the seal dialing here a common issue?
Any chance I can just smear Black RTV around it and try to cram it between the mating surfaces? I really do not want to drop the pan.

 

[franklin2]

You have the seal around the front of the oil pan, and then you have the seal where the crankshaft comes out.

With the oil pan seal, you can try snugging up the bolts you just installed. They can get loose if you just installed a new gasket. If that's not it, you can take some brake cleaner and clean the area up really good, and then run it without driving down the road and having all that air going by blowing oil all over the place. If you determine it's the front seal, that is usually just taking the belts off, taking the lower pulley off, and then pulling the crankshaft damper off and replacing the seal.

I have never worked on your particular engine, I am assuming the lower seal can be replace separately, I know on some modern engines the timing cover is plastic and you are not supposed to replace just the seal.

Hopefully you can pry it out, and then be able to install a new seal if you need to. Before you put it back together inspect the crankshaft damper. Sometimes the seal will wear a groove in the metal on the damper. If it does, they usually sell repair sleeves to install over the damaged area.

 

[RonD]

Front and Rear Main seals are right next to the front and rear crank bearing journals, so there is ALOT of oil coming out of those journals

They seal to the crank shaft, they can tear
I would plan on pulling the crank pulley off to determine if the front main seal is the issue or if its front pan gasket

 

[Dantheman1540]

I did not realize there is a seal that could be changed by removing the crank pulley. I don’t believe I ever did that, so I’ll order one and pull that tomorrow.

 

[RonD]

You can sometimes pull the front seal if...................the crank pulley is the surface the main seal rides on
Pulling the crank pulley will tell you IF its the main seal that's leaking

Sometimes you have to pull the front cover, timing chain cover, to replace the main seal

4.0l OHV or SOHC has the main seal riding on the pulleys surface, looks like this: https://www.explorerforum.com/forums/attachments/gooddamper-jpg.57892/

The shiny part is where the seal is, clean in front dirty behind

 

[Shran]

I've only replaced the front seal with the timing cover off the engine... I think it would be possible to do it without removing the cover but it would be difficult. Either way it is a pain and a big job.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Overall it wasn’t an awful job just a paid to find the right combo of bolts and pulley pullers to get the crank pulley off. The seal was pretty garbage but there’s still a huge oil leak so it must be the pan gasket. Gonna smear rtv around it just until I can get the pan dropped and seal replaced.

 

[Shran]

Nice. If you do it again, you can pull two of the AC compressor bolts off and use them with your puller... they are the perfect length

 

[Dantheman1540]

Nice. If you do it again, you can pull two of the AC compressor bolts off and use them with your puller... they are the perfect length

Dang that would have been an awesome tip to know! I have a whole set of extra bolts and bits from the old motor. Oh well Ace is the helpful place and Igot another set that worked lol.