Leaking rear main seal

[steve meltzer]

Thanx to you guys, I got my intake manifold done with relative ease....all buttoned up and lash set. I was sure that all of my oil leaks were from the front and rear of the intake, but with the intake off, the car is still leaking oil and I can see now I have leaks from the rear main seal and from the fuel pump. I have a professional mechanic who is advising me and helping with the things I can't do. He thinks we can do a better job if we remove the engine and do these jobs on a stand. There's no easy way, but what's your advise? I have a 2 post lift, AC, cherry picker, engine stand, tools and time, but I'm never lookin' for more work than is required. It's a Kirkham with the X-member very close to the rear of the Aviaid pan and access is terrible. Also I was thinking about removing the mechanic fuel pump and just putting in a block plate. Any thoughts, advice or "pearls of wisdom".

thanx steve

ADD: "New York Guy", please don't reply to this thread. Sending it to Kirkham isn't an option since I don't mind a bit of grease under my nails. s

[MOTORHEAD]

Steve: I have same car/engine set-up and also rear seal leak and plan to pull engine to fix it. I had to replace my bad hyd t.o.brg with an external slave and did it in the car. Had to remove seats, tunnel, drive shaft, tranny, Lakewood BH, and clutch. You would also have to remove the flywheel, and if you managed to get the pan off, I doubt you could get a good re-seal on it with the very limited acess. After you undo all listed above, pulling the engine would be the easy part.
Ted

[patrickt]

Steve, FWIW, every oil leak I've ever had (several) on my FE in the last eight years looked like it was from the rear main seal (which it never was). Fix every other known leak, like your fuel pump, first. If it really is your RMS, can you not get your pan off with a Kirkham with the engine in the car? Even if it was tricky, and getting a seal back on the pan was hard, I would take a crack at replacing the RMS from down below first. You can always pull the engine if you have to. Replacing the RMS from down below is discussed all the time over on the Ford FE forum. But I understand that if you can't get to it, you can't get to it. Here's a typical thread on slipping the RMS in from down below: 332-428 Ford FE Engine Forum: Rear main seal

[ERA Chas]

Steve,
A leak at the rear main area may not be from just the seal. Some SO's have main bolts whose heads protrude and cause a gap at the gasket and pan area. This is made worse if you have a windage tray. Member Jim Reiss went through extensive work to discover the bolt head problem on his.
Also, the cap drain may be outside where the gasket contacts the cap.
And finally, you may have a wrinkled pan rail or tray causing leakage. If you search oil pan threads here, there is extensive info on how I and others dealt with this problem. For instance, Jim and I had waterjet -cut pan rail stiffeners made (using a gasket as template) to allow more even clamping by the pan bolts over the length of the pan. Straightening the pan rail and even filling the flutes in it (to get a FLAT surface with more contact) is discussed.
Bottom line, do some reading first. Like Pat said, try to isolate the other sources and see if it goes away. Then I would probably pull the motor to make a definitive fix. I don't say that lightly, I know what a PIA that can be in a KMS.
Note: I would not block plate the pump. I'd pull it and carefully re-gasket it. Running an electric is fine- to feed the mechanical-not as a solo fuel source.

[steve meltzer]

Chas...thanx once again for the good advice. I'll def'n do some due diligence here and, of course, I had no idea about the protruding head bolts. Despite the work in pulling the engine, I'm not convinced one can do this job well, without doing so. thanx again. steve

[tcabece427]

I'd make sure that your using the rubber valve cover gaskets. In addition use RTV or Motorcraft TA-31 sealant. If they are sheet metal (chrome) valve covers. Use a piece of wood and tap down all the way around the edge paying particular attention to the back and lower side by the spark plugs.

[FatBoy]

Any oil leak will ultimately find its way down to drip off the bell-housing, giving the impression it is coming from the RMS.
I had/have exactly the same issue and went to all the trouble to pull out the gearbox, clutch and flywheel, only to find the rear of the engine completely dry and free of oil i.e. no leak from the rear crank seal.
I think mine is weeping from the front of the engine somewhere because the lower flange that the sump bolts to on the timing cover is pretty gunky.

Paul

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by FatBoy

Any oil leak will ultimately find its way down to drip off the bell-housing...

Yup, I even had an oil leak from the lawn mower somehow make its way to the Cobra's block plate and bellhousing.

[steve meltzer]

The engine is out and the bell housing was full of oil. Luckily, the clutch was dry so no harm there. I don't see how oil could enter the bell housing unless it was from the RMS. I know it could cover the bell housing from almost anywhere, even a nearby lawnmower, but not inside. thanx. s

[Racer_X]

Steve ,we just recently finished building my engine for my Kirkham. My builder used the 2 piece rear seal, staggered it in the cap, squeezed a good amount of RTV into the side seal area before pushing the side seals in, even smeared a little across the back of the cap mating area before putting the cap on. Haven't dropped it in the car yet, but numerous hours on the run in stand and a long dyno tuning session and no leaks yet.

Hopefully you can get yours to stop as well. Oil in the bellhousing is just following inertia while moving down the road, it tends to track rearward, probably leaking just at the rear main since it was inside the bell housing.

Is your block a cast iron factory side oiler? How's the pan mating surface near the cap? Are you running the sandwiched factory windage tray?

Curtis

[Large Arbor]

When I just did the clutch, flywheel ring gear, etc. I noticed my leaks were coming from the rear of the intake seal, not the main. It was leaking a few other places. Not much but just a drop. I have decided to let it go for now as it does not seem to be getting worse. I may change oils to see if that makes a difference in pressures as well.

Phil

[tcabece427]

Steve: I assume you have the flywheel off by now? Its not coming from the cam core plug? Or the (should be threaded for the 427) plugs for the end of the lifter galleys. Additionally I've seen folks put the core plug in the wrong way. It should be backwards from the normal way those press in core plugs go in. It should be with the convex side out.

[steve meltzer]

Thank you all for the new ideas, and i'll check them out. I did the intake first, with the engine in the car. With both the intake and the valve covers on the work bench, and the engine obviously at rest, there was still oil leaking from the engine, onto the shop floor. So, it can't be from either of those two places, but it could be from one of the others, and I'll check those. Thanx again...I'm learning a great deal from this (somewhat difficult) exercise. s

[ERA Chas]

Steve,
Add to your checklist:
fuel pump to block gasket / oil filter boss to block gasket / timing case cover / those NPT plugs at the crank flange (also one on block face driver side) and the cam plug.
If the threads on your plugs are wet, it's the intake gasket area. Make sure the dist O-ring is dry.

[steve meltzer]

Thanx Chas. My front timing chain cover doesn't leak and never has. should I reseal it anyhow? thanx again for your advice and input. steve

[lippy]

Originally Posted by ERA Chas

If the threads on your plugs are wet, it's the intake gasket area.

Chas, can you please provide a bit more detail on this? Do you mean that a leaking intake gasket leaks inside the cylinders and wets the plugs with oil? If the plugs are wet with oil, how would you know if its the rings, seals, or intake gasket? Or are you referring to the plug valley at the outside, which I would think would be the valve cover gasket? Thanks.

[ERA Chas]

Usually wet threads are a sign of the stem seals going or gone - so is the resultant blue exhaust smoke. Teflon hardens in street use and lets oil into the chamber. You want Viton seals. When not burning off, oil will migrate down the stem when cold, coat the chamber walls and soak the plug threads. A curled-up intake gasket can let oil into the port, and drip past an open valve into the chamber too.
Also, a leak-down test will show if the air if coming out the top (seals or valve seats) or bottom (rings).

[steve meltzer]

I have two more questions as I continue to work (piecemeal) on the engine. First, there has never been a leak from the front timing chain cover or water pump. I actually have the gaskets, but have been reluctant to fix things that "aren't broken". B) When I got the engine out of the car, I could see that the adapter, that allows you to run a remote/external oil cooler, was sealed to the block without a gasket....just billet metal to cast iron. They do make a gasket (FelPro #70135) for this interface and I wonder if I should use it or not. thanx again. steve

[ERA Chas]

Unless there's an o-ring in the billet, use a gasket.

[FatBoy]

Kirkham make a very nice remote filter adapter with an O-ring seal.

Paul