Zillionith Rear main seal question I'm sure.
cityjack
Jeeper
Good evening all,
After weeks and literally a hundred or so dollars on gaskets doing the same old thing slightly different over and over and countless hours of scouring the various forums I am stumped. I am going to apologize before hand for the hopefully not too long of a story I am about to give you all. I just want to give you gusy all the pieces so HOPEFULLY someone can shed some light on what I am possibly missing or doing wrong.
The patient is my 82 CJ5 , AMC 258 i6 / 4.2l with a 4-spd. Probably over a 150K on the motor.
Last summer the oil leaks from the valve cover and what I thought was the rear main seal got so bad they began to saturate the clutch and pressure plate to the point where the jeep would shake so bad when I let the clutch out it would almost shake me out of the vehicle. I like a dumb a** ignored it until I broke the throwout bearing in half and could not shift into reverse or first without first turning the jeep off then restart once in gear.
removed the tranny. Totally cleaned the whole underside of the vehicle and all of the tranny and Transfer Case . Put a new aluminum valve cover on. A new clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing. 1st time - New rear main seal and oil pan gasket. Put RTV(Blue gue) on the corners of oil pan gasket where it meets the rear main cap, under and on top of the rear main seal sides the half that goes in the cap and also where the two seal meet. Assembled back together. At idle no leak. Sitting in neutral at higher than idle rpm no leak. Drive down the road for about five minutes and back to the drive way. Oil is raining down from between the inspection plate and the tranny bellhousing. 2nd time - Took it all apart, thought maybe we inadvertently put a little tear in the seal that goes into the block. Re RTV'ed(Blue gue) the exact same way except this time I put RTV under the seal that fits into the rear main cap. Put it all back together. Exact same results at the exact same time. No leaks when sitting still. Only when it goes for a ride. 3rd time - took it apart. At closer inspection it appeared as if oil was escaping under the oil pan gasket between the gasket and the oil pan where it sits on top of the rear main cap. We put a new oil pan gasket on with only this time we used Permatex Gray RTV and this would have been the second Felpro 1 piece gasket with metal in it. Same results at excatly the same time. No leaks when sitting still at idle or above. Only after a drive. 5 minutes usually will produce oil. Still leaks pretty good. A bunch of oil drops hanging from the gap in the inspection plate and the tranny bellhousing. After reading on a forum somewhere that there should be absolutely no RTV on the backside of the seal where it sits into the rear main cap. I planned to tear it down AGAIN the coming weekend. But before the weekend I thought I'd give the 9 dollar Bars Leak rear main seal fix a try. I normally don't ever use "fix it in a bottle", but I figured what the heck, I was going to tear it down again anyway. Wasted 9 dollars. 4th time - Tore it down and when I removed the oil pan the rear of the oil pan gasket sprung out of its area where it sits in the oil pan on top of the rear main cap. The oil pan gasket grew ALOT and I didn't know why. That was until my friend explained what that BARS Leak
does. Swells gaskets. At closer look it appeared that my oil pan was bent in the rear of the pan where it mates up to the rear main cap. Evidently from when I let the pan hang down one time with the two rear pan bolts still in. This made for excess room for the oil pan gasket to grow and obviously not seal. I thought I FINALLY found the smoking gun. My friend who is an exactly metal fab guy helped me tweak the pan back into shape however so slightly. Same pan gasket and back together it went. I left the rear main seal alone. Same results, same way. No leaks when sitting still only after a 5 minute drive. I thought ok. Its gotta be that RTV that I put on the back side of the rear main seal thats up in the cap. 5th time - tore it apart removed the seal out of the cap. Cleaned the rear main cap with brake cleaner very well. Removed all RTV and put a new seal with gray RTV on the chamfered edges of the cap the cap surface adjacent to the sides of the seal that is in the cap but NOT at the points where the two seal halves meet. The seal directions that came in the box said to NOT do that although I did it every other time before this. Put a new oil pan gasket in, tossed the swelled one and got rid of the oil that had the seal fixer in it as well. Put RTV at the corners on the oil pan gasket where I'm supposed to. Torqued oil pan to spec. Assembled like always to the "T". SAME FRICKIN RESULTS. Should I have put a little dab on the 2 points where the two seal meet? I have nothing that I can feel on the crank surface where the seal rides as far as a groove goes. I do however have a score mark on the rear main bearing from a small burr somewhere on the crank, but th complete rest of the bearing has its gray material still intact telling me the bearings were replaced sometime in the not too distant future. The motor has got to be tired though because at idle I have little to no oil pressure. I'm assuming the previous owner must have just put bearings in and didn't touch the cylinder walls or put rings in. My PCV valve is fine. No leaks from a oil pressure sending unit or base distributer. I can see its coming from between the inspection cover and tranny.
I've read two things I have not looked into or thought of;
1. Worn thrust bearing allowing the rear main seal to move from crank movement.
2. Blow by I've read maybe.
Any help would so much appreciated. I am so so tired of crawling under this thing. 3 rear main seals. 3 oil pan gaskets. 2 oil changes and countless man hours. I'm getting tired but I do not want to give up. I will not let this oil leak kick my a**
HELP ME PLEASE!
Sid
After weeks and literally a hundred or so dollars on gaskets doing the same old thing slightly different over and over and countless hours of scouring the various forums I am stumped. I am going to apologize before hand for the hopefully not too long of a story I am about to give you all. I just want to give you gusy all the pieces so HOPEFULLY someone can shed some light on what I am possibly missing or doing wrong.
The patient is my 82 CJ5 , AMC 258 i6 / 4.2l with a 4-spd. Probably over a 150K on the motor.
Last summer the oil leaks from the valve cover and what I thought was the rear main seal got so bad they began to saturate the clutch and pressure plate to the point where the jeep would shake so bad when I let the clutch out it would almost shake me out of the vehicle. I like a dumb a** ignored it until I broke the throwout bearing in half and could not shift into reverse or first without first turning the jeep off then restart once in gear.
removed the tranny. Totally cleaned the whole underside of the vehicle and all of the tranny and Transfer Case . Put a new aluminum valve cover on. A new clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing. 1st time - New rear main seal and oil pan gasket. Put RTV(Blue gue) on the corners of oil pan gasket where it meets the rear main cap, under and on top of the rear main seal sides the half that goes in the cap and also where the two seal meet. Assembled back together. At idle no leak. Sitting in neutral at higher than idle rpm no leak. Drive down the road for about five minutes and back to the drive way. Oil is raining down from between the inspection plate and the tranny bellhousing. 2nd time - Took it all apart, thought maybe we inadvertently put a little tear in the seal that goes into the block. Re RTV'ed(Blue gue) the exact same way except this time I put RTV under the seal that fits into the rear main cap. Put it all back together. Exact same results at the exact same time. No leaks when sitting still. Only when it goes for a ride. 3rd time - took it apart. At closer inspection it appeared as if oil was escaping under the oil pan gasket between the gasket and the oil pan where it sits on top of the rear main cap. We put a new oil pan gasket on with only this time we used Permatex Gray RTV and this would have been the second Felpro 1 piece gasket with metal in it. Same results at excatly the same time. No leaks when sitting still at idle or above. Only after a drive. 5 minutes usually will produce oil. Still leaks pretty good. A bunch of oil drops hanging from the gap in the inspection plate and the tranny bellhousing. After reading on a forum somewhere that there should be absolutely no RTV on the backside of the seal where it sits into the rear main cap. I planned to tear it down AGAIN the coming weekend. But before the weekend I thought I'd give the 9 dollar Bars Leak rear main seal fix a try. I normally don't ever use "fix it in a bottle", but I figured what the heck, I was going to tear it down again anyway. Wasted 9 dollars. 4th time - Tore it down and when I removed the oil pan the rear of the oil pan gasket sprung out of its area where it sits in the oil pan on top of the rear main cap. The oil pan gasket grew ALOT and I didn't know why. That was until my friend explained what that BARS Leak

I've read two things I have not looked into or thought of;
1. Worn thrust bearing allowing the rear main seal to move from crank movement.
2. Blow by I've read maybe.
Any help would so much appreciated. I am so so tired of crawling under this thing. 3 rear main seals. 3 oil pan gaskets. 2 oil changes and countless man hours. I'm getting tired but I do not want to give up. I will not let this oil leak kick my a**
HELP ME PLEASE!
Sid