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Oil Leak near the crank pulley?

V

verrive

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Ellensburg, WA
Hey,
I noticed today when I was changing my front differential oil that there was oil coming up on the bottom 2 bolts on my oil pan by my crank pulley. Any ideas on what this would be? Easy/hard fix and cheap or expensive?

Thanks,
Kevin
 
Im not a real smart guy when it comes to diagnosing but i know the rear main seal is also called the crankshaft rear main seal so id guess that. Also its incredibly common on 4.0 cherokees. Mine did it horribly for 60000 miles. If it is that it sucks to replace i had a mechanic do it and he was the cheapest in town at about 300 bucks. Plus my oil filter housing was leakin at the same time. Hope it helped but hope its not the rear main.
 
There is a lip seal there. When you have a one piece oil pan gasket it is part of it. You could get to it by either removing the timing cover or by removing the oil pan. I recommend the second option.

You can get a new seal in there easy enough. Drain the oil, remove the oil pan. It's not hard to put the new seal it; just RTV the heck out of it and then use the oil pan bolts to hold the seal up until it dries. Then remove bolts and put the oil pan back on. It's not hard, just messy. No way I'd pay 300 bucks for either that or a rear main seal. Both are relatively easy.

Kevin
 
You have to be careful on jumping to conclusions about the source of the oil. I have seen more than one jeep that had the rear main seal replaced only to find out that the leak was the back of the valve cover and it was running down the back of the engine and ending up where you said.
 
From what I can see it looks like it is coming up from above kinda behind the crank pulley. I just e-mailed the company that I bought the engine from to see if it's covered by there warranty. If so I'll more than gladly drop it by a shop and have them fix it as the labor is paid for and I assume the parts needed would be as well :p
 
Gents, I think you're ALL jumping to the wrong conclusion ... except PWRDrill. The man said the leak was near the crank pulley. That's on the front of the engine -- only way for oil from a rear main seal to get there is to drive a few hundred miles at highway speed in reverse.

It's either a FRONT main seal, or the front section of the pan gasket, which is what PWRDrill already addressed.
 
And who said I haven't been driving a lot in reverse?!?! :p About how much does one of those run for my reference? If I get the oil drained and the oil pan off about how long does it take to replace the front mail seal?

Thanks,
Kevin
 
I'm in camp with Eagle. How about the seal for the harmonic balancer??? If that's bad pull the HB and get the replacement seal with the sleeve that goes on the HB. Your local parts place (even napa) can explain if you bring this post in. BTW the sleeve goes on the HB shaft and serves to provide a smooth surface for the seal to ride on because the shaft tends to get grooved over time.
All that said I had a similar leak, replaced HB and seal (hb was bad) and no leaks-- I may have the only jeep that doesn't leak oil!!!! right now anyway
hth
 
I probably goofed in calling it a front "main" seal -- it isn't associated with the main bearing, and you don't drop the oil pan to change it. You remove the harmonic balancer (front pulley), pop out the old seal, carefully drive in a new one, and replace the harmonic balancer. Be sure to wipe some clean oil on the surface of the seal before installing the harmonic balancer. If the seal is dry, it'll get eaten up.
 
Eagle is correct. Had the leak been coming from below it would have been a little more troublesome.

HB isn't hard to get off. Once you know what you're doing it will take no more than 10 to 20 minutes to get it completely off.

Good luck.

Kevin
 
Would I need to take out the radiator to do it? I remember reading about doing something to my crank pulley a while back and I heard that made things a lot easier.

Thanks,
Kevin
 
Taking the radiator and front clip off would make the job easier, but you could do the entire job without removing them. It's up to you. Either work harder because you're in a tight space or work harder because you have to remove a bunch of junk.

Just remember, removing the radiator would include draining the coolant and AC lines.

Kevin
 
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