Okay, I'm about to make a visit to the shrink on this one.

When I did my rebuild 6,000 miles ago I ended up with a very, very small oil leak from the front. The car never leaked any oil before. It would drop about a nickel to a quarter size drop of oil max after I came back from a drive. Investigation led me to believe it was coming from the timing chain cover/crankshaft hub seal.

I lived with it for 8 months and then I needed to replace my opti so I bought a new seal and put it in. The leak got worse! Instead of just leaking a drop and then stopping, I found oil all over the underside of the motor and instead of a small round circle I was getting multitple spots and much more volume. I hate that. The car is pristine and yet I can't go anywhere without leaving oil.

So, I pulled the hub again and bought a new seal. When the hub was off I took a good look at it and the seal surface seemed to have a couple of very small divots in it. Now I mean small. You could rub the meat of your finger over it and not notice it but you could catch it with a finger nail so I decided to order a new hub thinking there was a slight possibilty the marks were right on the seal surface and they were wicking oil out. The old one was a billet steel keyed hub that I bought used but this time I ordered one of Thunder Racing's keyed hub's which is an OEM hub with a keyway cut into it. (nice piece BTW and awesome service .... I had it in 2 days).

Anyway, I got it in tonight started it up, went for a drive, came back and drove up on ramps and there's freakin oil everywhere. I mean everywhere. Worse than before. It's getting progressively worse with each time.

With the car on ramps and running you can't see oil coming out but take it out for a drive and come back and it has spewed out all over and is dripping off of everything.

It obviously wasn't the hub and any thought that it was the seal between the inside seal surface and the hub seems unlikely.

Could I just be so unlucky that I've gotten 3 bad GM seals in a row? Could it be leaking around the OD of the seal, the seal between the seal and the timing chain cover? If so why? The seat didn't appear to be damaged.

I really am going nuts on this one. I think I'll try a non-GM seal but I think that's a stretch.

Any ideas?

TIA

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Paul
Blown 1996 Harley-Davidson Limited Edition WS6 TA; 1KWKBRD
http://www.socal-fbodies.org/images/paul96ta.jpg
Vortech Supercharged 355
Dyno Data:
Motor; 463 rwhp & 421 ft lbs
Nitrous; 592 rwhp & 629 ft lbs

 

This is better suited for LT1 Tech. Moving now.