Had a leak coming from the crank seal in the timing cover, so last weekend I pulled the timing cover off and changed all the seals; water pump, Opti, and crank seal. Finished it started right up, no leaks drove it home and parked it. I decided to drive it yesterday, drove it around all day, parked it and now this morning i see another oil drip. I get under the car and once again its dripping from the same place. Is there a reason that this just won't seal, is my crank out of balance, main bearings going? I'm fed up with these damn oil leaks!!! Any input or insight would help.

 

Did clean/remove all rust around the hub where the seal makes contact? If you didn't it's quite possible the rust ate the new seal and you may be right back where you started.

 

You also need to have put grease or assy lube on the seal to keep it from burning up before it's oiled. Or you've got a groove worn on the surface and need a speedy-sleeve.

 

Yeah we cleaned it up, I had my uncle actually assist me with this and we did everything right, he seems to think that there is some slop in the crank and that my main bearings are getting bad, its only got 92,560 miles on it but who knows...time to sell it

 

we checked for a grove on the hub and it looked clean, would putting the "speedy sleeve" on the hub help even if it doesn't have a grove in it?

 

If the seal is not installed correctly, it will leak, too. It has to be installed flat and never bent. If your crank had enough slop to cause that seal to leak, your bearings probably would have been gone long ago.

 

If you are using a factory GM seal, dont. Buy a Chicago Rawhide or one of
the other GOOD aftermarket brands. THe GM seal has a rubber outer covering
that doesnt seal worth a damn. I bought one for my wifes '95 and it started
to leak almost immediately. I noticed during the install that it took almost no
effort to install the seal - it almost went in by hand!

I have written up and posted tech articles on how to properly install all the
oil seals up front. The usual suspects are the WP seal being installed wrong,
and the intake manifold leaking at front and rear. Retorqing the intake with
the proper sequence can make a HUGE difference. I found most the bolts on
her intake were finger tight! I have 256k on my Camaro Z28, the Impala SS
clone has 227k and the wifes recently totalled '95 Camaro saw 192k. I really
have to doubt you have so much crank play at a measly 92k that it would do
damage to the seal. Your car is hardly broken in!

Tom

 

I would verify that you didn't roll the lip of the WP seal when you reinstalled the timing cover. That seal is a pain in the a** to get in right.

 

The seals were installed correctly and its not the waterpump seal. I purchased a seal kit for the whole front timing cover, it wasn't the GM brand, if I remember correctly it was ROL gaskets. I'm going to try to install the repair sleeve on the hub to see if that will work. I figure with that sleeve on there it will increase the diameter slightly and could be all it needs. I just can't seem to win with this car though...very frustrating.

 

Its actually very easy with the right tools. Here is my tech article. I asked if
it could be made a sticky here ... but no dice.

http://www.impalaclub.com/naisso/for...TOPIC_ID=30984

Tom

 

Im haveing the same problem. After my cam install i developed a leak from what seems to be the crank hub. Took the hub off, it had a groove, couldnt find a hub in time to replace it so just polished it up and then replaced the seal with one from NAPA. Still leaked. I finally got ahold of a better hub. Put it in today. Figured i wouldnt change the seal since it only has like 10miles on it. I lubed up the hub before install and wipe around the seal to clean it up. Yeah still leaking.

I look behind the opti and i dont see any oil. WHich makes me think its not the opti seal that is leaking. maybe it is though, just drizzling down and hitting the crank. I'm probably just gonna go ahead and take the opti and waterpump off and replace every gasket. I been dealing with this crank leak for to long and its getting old.

 

Yeah as I stated I replaced all three seals, even though the waterpump and opti seal were dry. This saturday I pulled the hub off again and installed a hub repair sleeve (even though there wasn't a groove in my hub) thinking that this possibly could create a better seal and installed it back using the same seal i installed a week ago...didn't and still is leaking. I agree little oil drips in my driveway are getting real old real quick. I guess that last thing I could try is to replace that seal again and re-install the hub, maybe the seal just wasn't great from the start...either way i'm getting very close to purchasing a FOR SALE sign!

 

if things go "right" i think i might not have to fix this leak, and the person getting it can deal with it. If it doesnt go through then im just gonna try buying another seal and see what happens. If that dont work, then the bottom of the missippi river will be the new parking spot.