Rear main seal fubar. What now?

[RayInStl]

I pulled the motor on my 83 Ranger 2.3 4x4 to change the gaskets, rear main seal, and clutch. The rear main seal appears to be mostly missing, which explains why it leaked oil faster than Saudi Arabia can pump it. But how the hell do I get the remaining seal out? It seems like all standard methods consist of getting a hold of the old gasket with a pick or screw and using that to remove the rest of it, but I don't have enough left to do that.

 

[ford4thot]

Maybe something like this?
That is a plumbing tool to pull out old sink faucet seals. Should be available in the plumbing section of just about any hardware store. I'd give that a try

 

[RayInStl]

Maybe something like this?
That is a plumbing tool to pull out old sink faucet seals. Should be available in the plumbing section of just about any hardware store. I'd give that a try

Thanks for the reply, but is there a link missing or something?

 

[ford4thot]

Thanks for the reply, but is there a link missing or something?

Weird the picture didn't upload. Here I'll try again

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

In reference to the OP,
I noticed that you are linking your pics from imgur. Their terms of service prohibit that. If you get caught you could lose all your posts on Imgur's site. I see one of your pics is already deleted. It would be best if you use a site like photobucket to host pics you link to.

Here is the pertinent term highlighted from Imgurs site;

Stuff not to do

If someone else might own the copyright to it, don't upload it. Don't upload gore, "hate speech" (i.e. demeaning race, gender, age, religious or sexual orientation, etc.), or material that is threatening, harassing, defamatory, or that encourages violence or crime. Don't upload illegal content such as child porn or nonconsensual ("revenge") porn. Don't hotlink to adult content or to file-sharing, gambling, torrent, warez, or Imgur rip-off sites. Don't impersonate someone else. Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network. If you do – and we will be the judge – or if you do anything illegal, in addition to any other legal rights we may have, we will ban you along with the site you're hotlinking from, delete all your images, report you to the authorities if necessary, and prevent you from viewing any images hosted on Imgur.com. We mean it.

 

[RayInStl]

Thank you, floored. I wasn't aware. I've used them because they make it easy to upload from an android device. Guess I'll have to find someone else.

 

[Hagan]

I simply pound a flathead screw driver through the metal part of the seal and pry it out. You have to be rough with it. I've removed every rear main seal the same way.

 

[RayInStl]

There's no metal part of the seal, that's the problem. Just little chunks of rubber stuck like it tore and they just said "the hell with it".

 

[Hagan]

Can you scrape the rubber chunks off?

 

[RayInStl]

Guys, I'm a moron. The 83 came with a 2 piece gasket. There's a redesigned 1 piece to replace it, but that's why it's not accessible. I have to pull the bearing cap. Oh joy. Glad I was doing the oil pan anyway!

 

[RayInStl]

Update for anyone who comes across this thread in the future: Yes, it was a 2 piece rear main seal. I had to remove the pan and the rear bearing cap to get it out. I will be upgrading to the later 1 piece design.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Thanks for update.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

 

[ford4thot]

Glad you figured it out

 

[Pauls 4x4]

My suggestion was to drop the cap! So that solves that! Not really a solution but it will be fixed!

 

[Hagan]

Glad you got it figured out. Are you replacing the oil pan gasket too?