so after reading the write up on the rear main i get my tools together and plan to stop that oil leak once and for all.
Now i have to say i did not have any real fear about this job as the write up looks pretty straight forward and have been working on cars as a hobby for a few years.
So let the nightmare begin.
Well the first issue was the fact that the front rear seal had been leaking for about 3 years and the PO did not fix it ( i did last week) so the whole motor from the balancer back was just a mess of grease and caked on grime that even the pressure washer would not move.
I jack up the front end way high on some big stands i use for the truck and loosen and remove all the oil pan bolts, its take about 45 min to do this because of all the crud stick to everything.
Then i try a few blows with a rubber mallet to loosen the pan,, nothing.. a bigger mallet... nothing.. i end up hammering in in a pry bar between the block and pan and then using a smaller hammer to drive it all the way down the sides of the case to get the seal to give!!!
Once the pan is loose i can see no way of getting this out the back of the motor. The front axle sits where is simply cannot come off. I remove the sway bars to give me a little extra room and the axle is now at full droop and still i am missing about 2 inches of clearance.
I finally give up on that plan, remove the drag link and rest of the searing, unbolt the oil pan pick up and remove it from the front. on a side note watching the cheep cherokee build on Trucks they did the same thing perhaps its an issue with the 87's?
Before moving any further i spent over an hour (yes and hour) getting what was left of the rock hard, and i mean rock hard gasket off the bottom of the block and cleaned out the pan which was to my surprise almost sludge free. The gasket has set to hard i ended up using a steel scraper for floor tiles as the razor blade one i had just broke the blades.
then onto the seal replacement itself!! I pull the bearing cap off and this is where i stated to worry. getting the lower half of the seal out of here with it on the bench was a bitch, it took some real force and the cap being held in a vice and me pulling with both hands on the pliers to get it out. The seal itself seems to have a steel belt in it to keep it stiff and was very very ridged.
With that and my new one in place in the lower i moved to to the upper half. i had my brass drift in hand and pressed hard.... noting.
using a small hammer on the drift... nothing..
i then loosend off the next two caps on the crank to try and give it a little room.. with some harder taps.... nothing.
all the time making sure i am on the seal and nothing else.
A bigger hammer... nothing then the brass drift bends in half,
An alloy drift and a good firm blow or 20 and nothing, neither end of the seal will move and both ends of he seal are now are a little deformed. that sucker is just not moving!!
:flamemad:
Right its been nearly six and a half hours, i am head to foot in grease and getting a little frustrated. i rtv up the edges of the seal where i have been pounding it and spend the next 60 min putting it all back together so i could get Jeep out of the garage before my wife got home.
In short i would just love to know what went wrong, I took my time, did not get upset (until the end) and there was not way that seal was going to move. needless to say it still leaks like bugger so i am really stuck as to what to do next, Pull the motor?
ANY advice you have would be appreciated.
Dave
Now i have to say i did not have any real fear about this job as the write up looks pretty straight forward and have been working on cars as a hobby for a few years.
So let the nightmare begin.
Well the first issue was the fact that the front rear seal had been leaking for about 3 years and the PO did not fix it ( i did last week) so the whole motor from the balancer back was just a mess of grease and caked on grime that even the pressure washer would not move.
I jack up the front end way high on some big stands i use for the truck and loosen and remove all the oil pan bolts, its take about 45 min to do this because of all the crud stick to everything.
Then i try a few blows with a rubber mallet to loosen the pan,, nothing.. a bigger mallet... nothing.. i end up hammering in in a pry bar between the block and pan and then using a smaller hammer to drive it all the way down the sides of the case to get the seal to give!!!
Once the pan is loose i can see no way of getting this out the back of the motor. The front axle sits where is simply cannot come off. I remove the sway bars to give me a little extra room and the axle is now at full droop and still i am missing about 2 inches of clearance.
I finally give up on that plan, remove the drag link and rest of the searing, unbolt the oil pan pick up and remove it from the front. on a side note watching the cheep cherokee build on Trucks they did the same thing perhaps its an issue with the 87's?
Before moving any further i spent over an hour (yes and hour) getting what was left of the rock hard, and i mean rock hard gasket off the bottom of the block and cleaned out the pan which was to my surprise almost sludge free. The gasket has set to hard i ended up using a steel scraper for floor tiles as the razor blade one i had just broke the blades.
then onto the seal replacement itself!! I pull the bearing cap off and this is where i stated to worry. getting the lower half of the seal out of here with it on the bench was a bitch, it took some real force and the cap being held in a vice and me pulling with both hands on the pliers to get it out. The seal itself seems to have a steel belt in it to keep it stiff and was very very ridged.
With that and my new one in place in the lower i moved to to the upper half. i had my brass drift in hand and pressed hard.... noting.
using a small hammer on the drift... nothing..
i then loosend off the next two caps on the crank to try and give it a little room.. with some harder taps.... nothing.
all the time making sure i am on the seal and nothing else.
A bigger hammer... nothing then the brass drift bends in half,
An alloy drift and a good firm blow or 20 and nothing, neither end of the seal will move and both ends of he seal are now are a little deformed. that sucker is just not moving!!
:flamemad:
Right its been nearly six and a half hours, i am head to foot in grease and getting a little frustrated. i rtv up the edges of the seal where i have been pounding it and spend the next 60 min putting it all back together so i could get Jeep out of the garage before my wife got home.
In short i would just love to know what went wrong, I took my time, did not get upset (until the end) and there was not way that seal was going to move. needless to say it still leaks like bugger so i am really stuck as to what to do next, Pull the motor?
ANY advice you have would be appreciated.
Dave