5.8 Rear Main Seal Leak
#1
5.8 Rear Main Seal Leak
My 94 F250 has over 212k miles on it, I bought the truck a few years ago with 207k miles on it from a neighbor down the street after it sat in his yard for over 3 years. I ended up having to pull the engine and replace alot of parts to get it running again.I have easily sank more money into this thing than its worth already but its my only 4x4 vehicle and only truck. After replacing the seals, gaskets and freeze plugs as well as many other things and putting the engine back in, it has always had a leak at the rear main. I thot maybe I damaged the seal when I installed it, had to have the tranny rebuilt and asked the shop to replace the seal with the tranny out. They decided they didnt think it needed replaced so I got the truck back with still a leaky rear main. I finally just got around to dropping the tranny myself and pulling out the seal. It was definately leaking. Heres where im not sure how to proceed. I noticed the grooves worn in the crankshaft from the old seals. They are fairly decent grooves. Im afraid to just install another rear main seal and get it all back together to find that it still leaks. I work in an auto parts store, a guy I work with tells me that aftermarket seals such as felpro and such are designed to line up at a different position on the crank than the factory seal so its not in the grooves that are there and shouldnt leak. Im not sure if this is true and dont know if I want to take the chance. I also found out that Felpro and other brands sell a repair sleeve that goes over the crank to give you a fresh surface for the seal to contact. From what I can tell its just a thin piece of metal you install over the crankshaft. I then ask well what happens when the new seal wears through or cuts the sleeve in half? How many thousand miles will this sleeve last? Im not sure if I like taking that route either. Yet another opinion was to replace the whole crank with a reman since im replacing the oil pan while everything else is apart. I dont know if thats worth the extra work or just exactly how easy thats going to be with the engine still in the truck. Any ideas or opinions on what my best solution is will be greatly appreciated...
#2
I have never used a sleeve, but i have heard that they work alright, and if you can pull up the seals while at work maybe you can check them with a caliper?
replacing the whole crank would be the politically correct thing to do, but not unless you were gonna do a full rebuild.
I have used jb on small engine cranks for this purpose, and it worked, but i dont reccommend it...
replacing the whole crank would be the politically correct thing to do, but not unless you were gonna do a full rebuild.
I have used jb on small engine cranks for this purpose, and it worked, but i dont reccommend it...
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