the water pump seal is a douple seal, has inner and outer lip. be careful not to roll the inner seal lip under the outer seal when installing the water pump seal. the install tool is used to prevent this from happening. the seal will fail shortly if it does. you can make a install tool out of a marker end cover. takes a little shaving for correct fit.

Thanks for all your help everyone. I've got everything I need to pretty much change out everything having to do with the timing cover. Here's what I saw after removing the water pump:





I expected to see more of an oily mess on the timing cover. Could it still be the seal?

Also how would you go about cleaning all this?

Looks like the intake manifold is leaking to me, considering the oil above the water pump drive.

I'm thinking that's from the spinning of the drive. If you look at the first picture where the intake manifold mates with the block, there's no oil and the timing cover is clean. I just wiped the top of the opti and it had a nice layer of sludge. I'm trying to take it off so I can change the seal but I'm having a hell of a time with the harmonic damper. I'm going to do a search but in the mean time if someone can tell me how to get this thing off I would really appreciate it. A pulley puller tool won't work because the damper doesn't have threads and the 3 clawed puller tool that shoebox mentioned on his site won't work because the claws have nowhere to hook. Here's what I'm dealing with:

I was able to pull my opti off without removing the hub thats behind the pulley. The pulley should just be held by the three bolts and some rust given its the same as mine and I am remembering correct.


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Right, I'm not going to remove the hub. I just want the pulley off but neither the pulley puller nor the 3 clawed puller will work. If I HAVE to I'll use the 3 clawed puller to grab the outside of the damper but then I'm probably going to have to replace the damper. I really don't want to use a mallet.

try a bunch of pb blaster and use and impact gun to put bolts in and take them out a few cycles and you may rattle it free.


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Problem is your non-stock hub. The damper is not an interference fit on the stock hub. If it wasn't rusted it would fall right off when you pulled the bolts. Or is your aftermarket hub an interference fit?

I'm not sure. It's what Golen put on the long block. What is interference fit? I guess I'll find out when I get this off.

Unfortunately I don't have any impact tools. I called Golen and he said to use a mallet and hit around the edges until it comes off. I guess I'll try that but I've decided I'm going to buy a new Dorman OE replacement damper for $70 that actually has threaded holes in it so I can use a pulley puller next time. If it won't budge with the mallet, I'll use the claw puller.

Managed to get the pulley off with the claw puller. I then used a pulley puller to get the crank hub out enough to finally pull the opti. Here's what it looked like. Could this be the source of the oil leak? I've never pulled an opti so I don't know if this oil is normal.





What would you use to clean all this? I was thinking brake parts cleaner and simple green.

I'll be doing searches but in the meantime, how would you get the crank hub back in?

I can see that the aftermarket round hub causes some issues in getting things apart. You want to use a high grade threaded rod, nut and washers to press the hub back in. This has been discussed so many times, I am sure you can find some threads on it. I would change that opti seal. Brake parts cleaner and Simple Green are fine.

Thanks for the help everyone. I had to special order a grade 8 threaded rod to make my own hub install tool. It's 7/16 -20 or "fine thread". -Impossible- to find anything that size around here. I then took it to a machine shop where I had them cut 7 inches off and weld a grade 8 nut on the end. I then used a stack of washers from 1/2 inch up to 1 inch and another grade 8 nut to complete the tool. Works great! But the whole ordeal was probably around $50.

I did my best installing the opti and water pump seals but I had problems with both going on crooked at first. Hopefully they hold but we'll see.