Recurring Rear Main Seal Problem????

[ThePOWERtoRULE]

Well, she ran real smooth for my 1,200 mile trek from Denver to my new home here in Santa Rosa.

My oil leak was better for a while but it suddenly became MUCH MUCH worse. I'm losing about a quart every 5 days... and I have reason to belive the rear main seal is bad AGAIN. That really ****** me off, seeing as it was done only this January, about 5,000 miles ago.

How hard is this to do yourself? Is there anything I should look for in a new seal? Any products or companies you'd reccomend here?

Any help is appreciated, I want to run her down at Sears Point's 1/4 mile before it closes for the winter on Thanksgiving... any Bay Area SHO Owners gonna be there?

 

[Machspeed]

Hey man i live in martinez ill go thumbs_u > Anyway, when i got my rear main seal replaced it went perfectly with the clutch job. Bad news is that its probably A big pain in the a$$.

 

[RStalveyARFF]

It could have been installed improperly, or the carrier plate was damaged when the old one was removed. If there are any sho's at junkyards around you, and the transmission is removed, I'd yank the plate, and buy a new rear main and carrier seal. Put the rear main in before you even go to change it and you'll be set!

 

[smcallis]

It could also be the pan gasket. I mistakenly thought my RMS was leaking after 20k or so of being replaced. I pulled the tranny to replace the seal and carrier gasket and found it was the pan gasket where the pan meets the carrier. With the tranny on there is no way to tell whether its the pan gasket, RMS or carrier. The cheaper and easier way out is to replace the pan gaskets and see if that fixes it. It's not lost work because with the age of our cars they all start to leak eventually.

 

[rangerj]

Jason,

There is a vacuum hose that is connected in the valley between the heads, and it runs up to the throttle body.

This hose (9/16 or 14mm) vacuums out the crankcase. A pressure buil-up in the crankcase could cause a rear main seal leak.

You may want to check this hose, and make sure it is venting the crankcase, before you pull the trans. If fact, you may want to check all hoses that vent the engine!

I know it is a long shot, but it is something you should rule out before you pull the trans. Hope this helps, rangerj