My 97 Trans Am has an oil leak. I brought it in to a local guy and he determined it was the timing chain cover. He is saying that i need a whole new cover, but GM discontinued them. I can't see why, unless it the cover has a crack in it. He is tell me that the centre seal is leaking and that the seal doesn't come out. Should that center seal be a pressed in seal?
He has the car up in the air and the oil pan is off, so I kind of stuck here.
Thank you.

 

I have had the seals replaced in mine before. Mine is a 94.

 

thanks

 

All the seals are replaceable.....just go to the Chevy dealer and get them. Then, aftr you get the car back, forget thatechanic exists...,he is pretty clueless.

 

I recently had a problem with my hub seal leaking, i will tell you that the seal needs to be installed 100 percent flat, meaning straight up and down, or it will leak. Also if yours is high mileage, the hub itself may have grooves in it from the old seal, and you may need a sleeve. I ultimately went with a aftermarket hub from thunder racing, nice product.
Oh yeah, I use grease on all 3 seals when installing them.

hth

andy schuck

 

got all new seals for the timing cover, distributer, and water pump from advanced auto parts for 11 bucks today...felpro brand..

 

That set is the cheapest way to get them.

 

It's a nightmare.

 

I think only the 94-95 has the nightmare install... where you have to use an object to spread the seal before installing it or it will catch the lip of the cam driven gear as you slide it on and will leak ever so slowly all over the back of your sloppyspark.

 

oh ... while you are there... you should check the gears on the water pump drive... mine were chewed out and I replaced the timing set while I had the cover off. The timing set comes with the cam driven water pump gear.

 

C'mon...it's no nightmare to install the seals.

93 to 97 wp drive are all the same and NONE are that hard.

 

I got the leak after the water pump was replaced. I think the seal must have gotten pinched then. Which is causing the oil leak now. But I'm not sure which seal is tge problem seal.
I have read and seen when putting the water pump back on the gear seal can get ruined.

 

I guess it's the center of tge timing chain cover where the distributor goes. The other two seals are ok. It's just the center one.
Does that make sence?

 

The water pump is the top seal. Why would the center be a problem if they changed the water pump? Why would the seal be a problem from changing the water pump? The shaft coupler only pushes on so far and stops. It can't be pushed on too far.

Why don't you try high mileage oil? Couldn't hurt.

 

The car only has 53,000kms. I originally thought the problem came from the water pump being changed. I guess it wasn't.

So now the question is has anyone changed the distributor seal? It's the center seal. I just ordered one from my GM parts dealer. But he said that the timing cover is discontinued. And he doesn't believe the seal he ordered will be the correct one.