I'm not fooling around with any of this heavy stuff--those days are over.

I've known this guy professionally ten years, and I'm impressed with his work. At work, he fixes stuff the dealers have given up on, tracing shorts deep in the harness, and finding parts which were defective when new. He was a class "A" mechanic at a Ford dealer for eight years.

He says my rear main seal is leaking for a reason; either the crank bearings are worn, causing play in the crank and ruining the seal, or that the guy who replaced the clutch used an air gun to tighten the flywheel bolts, damaging the bearings. In either case, he doesn't feel that a new rear seal would necessarily last very long, and he doesn't want to do the job if it won't hold up.

After reading tons of posts and ads for used Camaros, many with over 120,000-140,000 miles, I kind of doubt that my '92, with "only" 90,000 miles on a bone-stock 305 TBI, "wore out" the seal. What I'm trying to say is that I know the mechanic speaks from experience and knows what he's talking about, and what he says makes sense.

Unfortunately, his advice is to "sell the POS, buy a better car. You'll throw more money into this car than it's worth."

I'm very conflicted about the whole thing. I didn't pay a ton for the car, but I really like it. From the beginning, I thought the 3rd generation Camaro was one of the best-looking cars on the road. I have a daily driver, this was gonna be my "Sunday car", kind of a work-in-progress, wanna-be-garage-queen. I figured to throw a reasonable amount of money into it, making it a little nicer at each step. I've rediscovered an old hobby, scouring boneyards on days off and bugging my friends in the car business for parts---and you 3-gen guys know how plentiful and cheap most of the parts are for these cars. You could damn near build a fleet of 3-g's with the cars that are quietly rusting away in back of dealer lots and old gas stations. Man, I scored a perfect dash pad for my car a couple of days ago (the guy wanted to sell me the whole car, an '85 rust-bucket, for $100. I have no place to put another car----he gave me the pad for FREE. Can't describe the feeling, but I probably don't have to.

Anyway, (deep breath), I said all this to make a point---I hate to go against my guy's advice. Ever go out with a girl against an experienced friend's advice? Been there/done that---(can you spell d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d???)

How off-topic did I go??? Sorry.

Thoughts on my rear main seal, and my predicament???

Dean

 

we are in the same boat. My rear main seal is busted from a bad engine install. It had 550 miles on the rebuilt when i bought it unknowing about the seal. I called GM...they said they wouldnt do it, i called alotta places and found one who will replace it for 500 dollars. Its leaking pretty bad id say about half a quart a day. Im sorry but i love my car to death and to ME its worth the money for somthing i love so much. You shouldnt sell it or junk it...save up call places for estimates and get her fixed. Have someone that does it for you fix what they think is causing it to leak and then the seal itself..you never know till your engine is out. Im still attempting to save up as much as i can to get my prob fixed..just go with your heart

 

Just replace it. In the 1-piece design like you have, it'a an evening's work, not too much trouble really.

 

replace it, it's a cheap part, pretty easy to do, bit of heavy lifting, but easy. make sure you don't install it dry, more seals get burn up that way than wearing out. if there isn't any lube on the new part when you fire it it'll wear.

 

I can spell it all to well.
Its nice to balme things like bearing wear or a damaged crank so if it leaks again it covers your butt. 90% of RMS leaks are caused by age. Rubber dries out! If a new seal leaks its most likely an installer problem.

 

Have a new seal carrier on hand when you do it, in case the old one is FUBAR. You might even want to have a dial indicator so you can check crank end play and radial play. If axial (end) play is excessive (more than 0.006") or radial play is high (more than 0.0012"), you may want to stop there and plan on bearing shells.

 

I replaced my leaking main seal about 80,000 miles ago and it has not leaked since. If you replace yours, do not tap it in with a hammer. I cut a short piece(about 1 1/2 inches long) of 4 inch pvc pipe, bought some 1 1/2 inch longer bolts with extra washers and pressed it in using the flexplate.

 

I find what you mech very interesting being he is a ford mech and
should know in his own job that the ford 302 is known for this. I have seen and done both gm and ford rear main seals (1 pc)
the sad part is I work at a gm dealer. I have never had one come back. so I think it sounds like he just does not want to do it.

 

Possible---I kinda doubt it though---he's the kind of guy who would just say "have somebody else do it" if that were the case.

It's a side job for him, and it's difficult to get him to work on your car---he has a short list of regulars, and to him, I don't think it's the money.

You kind of said what I wanted to hear, though---that the seals do sometimes just wear out, and perhaps all it really needs is a new one.

If I can talk him into doing the job, I will. (Unfortunately, I guess this means a new clutch too while the trans is out). If he won't do it, I'll get someone else.

Am I better off sticking with the OEM clutch parts?...bearing in mind this is a stock 305 and isn't going to see a drag strip or a stoplight race except as a spectator?

 

OK...after a search this is the closest post, so I figured I would bring it back to life.

Short history: 1992 Camaro Z28. Leaking rearmain. 89000 miles.

I am comfortable with the tranny drop and all that needs to be done to get to the seal. What specifically needs to be done to change it?

My service manual shows this special tool needed to install the seal and I cannot find it anywhere (the tool that is...not the manual ) . Additionally, the manual is rather vague when it comes to changing the seal.

Any feedback would be GREATLY appreciated.

From one Camaro lover to another........HELP.

Thanks,

Fratsit
Honolulu

Oh yeah.....the Pro-Built trans is going in when I install the rearmain.

 

not sure what you call "special tools" a torx socket maybe to remove studs, torx bit socket for a couple of screws. punch to remove seal, seal driver, block of wood, or large socket to install seal. not really much to it.

 

Just so I won't be rude, I'll post something, but it's not an answer.

My buddy, subject of the original post, finally got the car back to me. It hasn't leaked a drop since, but when I ask him what was leaking, he shrugs his shoulders and says "everything".

Apparently the problem wasn't the seal after all. As you must have read by now, there are a bunch of leaky spots on these cars. He says he tightened up a bunch of stuff, so no help here.
I love the guy, but he's such a d#$k....

Good Luck.

 

try changing the distributor oring maybe? if thats leaking a lot it could be sending oil down the back of the engine so it looks like a rear main leak possibly?

 

$500 to do a rear main seal ????? That's insane! I had my clutch replaced, and the rear main seal for a total of $260 labor! The seal was about $30 if I remember right.

 

.

 

I was quoted $600 for the rear main in my explorer, then again this is the same guy who wanted $300 for valve cover gaskets, and $150 to install a front driveshaft.

 

josh the rear main seal is at the rear end of the cran, which is on the bottom side of the engine. it's not accessable from the intake or by doing an intake swap. there is a rear intake seal, called a china wall gasket or seal, lot of people trash them and use RTV instead.

 

.

 

RB83L69: If you're still out there since this thread started a long time ago. You say it's an evening's work, what is involved? I mean from what I read you have to remove the transmission or slide it back a decent amount. Then you have to remove the flywheel. I am not experienced in this area so if you could tell me how you can do it in an evening it would be appreciated.

 

Real main seal is an easy replacement. Well it was for me at least, not sure for a car with an auto, might be easier to remove an auto than a manual, but then again the hard part is putting the manual back.

Just remove drivetrain (driveshaft, tranny, bellhousing, flywheel). Right behind the flywheel it will staring right at ya, get a $20 replacement at autozone, get a rubber mallet, line that sucker up straight as can be and give it a few wacks, problem solved.

Should take you no more than say 6-7 hours for your first time. Second time I removed my drivetrain I knew what to do, only took me 2 and a half hours to pull it off and put it back on .

 

Whoah crap, just noticed the date, hahaha sorry.

 

Now when you say "remove" the drivetrain you don't mean totally take the transmission out of the car. I assume you mean that you take the driveshaft off and move the transmission back as far as possible to make room. With an automatic would you have any problems with trans fluid leaking since the torque converter is bolted to the flywheel?

I really don't have a clue how you could do this in your garage or driveway. I guess maybe you have another car to drive or are just really experienced. When I just thought about removing the bolts that hold the tranny to the engine I laughed. I think I need to save some money to get it done by someone. Perhaps I just need another car so I can tool around with my Camaro.

 

With an auto, the way to do it would be to remove the crossmember and support the trans; remove the drive shaft, shifter cable, converter dust cover, and cooler lines; unbolt the converter from the flex plate; take out one of the lower bell housing bolts on each side and replace them both with about 6" long ones, then take out all the rest of them. Then slide the trans rearward as far as it will go. That will give you plenty of room to get a wrench up in there and remove the flex plate, and then to get to the seal housing which is a sort of cast aluminum plate that the seal fits in. Or, you could leave it in place and do the seal that way, I'm not sure which way is easier (both ways are pretty easy).

It's really not hard to get the bell housing bolts out. You can get the 4 lower ones from below with a ratchet, and the 2 upper ones from above with a short box-end wrench.

 

Nah, I mean remove the drivetrain as in take the transmission out. Well, thats how I did it anyways not sure if you cany other way, doubt you can get an impact wrench in their to remove the flywheel without the tranmission out of the way.

In fact, the transmission drops when you remove the tourque arm and pull it out to get to the bellhousing, so I believe the transmission must be pulled. Its really not that hard except for 2 bolts on the tranny that go to the bellhousing that are a PITA to break loose.

Its actually pretty easy to remove, its putting the manual back in thats hard, well the first time anyways. First time took me 45min to line the tranny up, 2nd time I did it took 3 minutes. Guess that is experience for ya.

 

Sounds like a real job to me but maybe that is because of my lack of funds and another means of transportation.