oil in the bell housing, again

[ae86 slide]

only about 3 months ago i changed the rear main seal on my silver top 4age as it was leaking, but yesterday i noticed more oil had acumilated on the bottom of the bell housing.
it hasnt leaked (as far as i know) untill now or prob since last sundays drift day.

now when i bought the seal last time i took my original seal into global to get the right one, from memory i ended up getting an ae92 seal.
im wondering if they might have stuffed up and the silvertop seal is different to other 4age's, or would the oil be coming from the gearbox end of the bell housing?

thanks guys

[takai]

Im guessing that you have an AE86 and also have a T50. The T50s have a little seal inside the input shaft sleeve, which funnily enough is called an input shaft seal. Now, only one or two people i know even bother to change these on any basis whatsoever, and they cop about as much abuse as the rear main on the engine.
So i would be inclined to be changing that over anyway. Especially that you have to take out the gearbox to change either over. (note, that most of this applies to Ws as well)

[wilbo666]

The smell of gearbox oil is pretty unique. You should be able to tell if the front gearbox seal is leaking, as opposed to the rear crank seal.

When you installed the new rear crank seal, what was the condition of the crank like? Did it have a deep groove in it? Also dropping burn outs etc is hard on the rear crank seal...



Cheers
Wilbo

[thechuckster]

It may not be the actual seal, but the seal carrier?

am not sure what the 4AGE rear crack-seal carrier looks like but of the (potentially similar) 1G, 7M & 18R blocks that i've seen up close you, if you fail to correctly re-seal that carrier to the block, or where the sump bolts onto the carrier, you'll have a potential sources for leaks into the bell-housing.

[Mr DOHC]

4a's have a seal carrier too

if u do a rear main again, do the carrier gasket and gear box seal too

[EVOSTi]

most likely theres a groove on the crank where the seal runs. its unlikely to be the carrier gasket. also check your crankcase ventilation, is this is restricted it will cause seals to leak and is often the reason seals leak in the first place. still 3 months isnt too bad on a car you are thrashing, i think its funny its leaking after 3 months and you think they gave you the wrong seal, even if it was the wrong seal you should have picked that up before you put it in.

[ae86 slide]

so if there is a groove on the crank wat is my next step, that sounds major.
and sory to sound stupid but the crankcase is the part around where the rear main seal goes yeah? and i suppose grease and grit would restrict ventelation to it?
as far as getting the wrong seal goes im not much of a mechanic, i was just asking to make sure all 4age seals are the same.

thanks for the help so far

[EVOSTi]

well if there is a groove in the crank, you can either seat the seal a little before or past the grove to get a good seal, or there are sleave kits for the crank, something i try to stay away from.

your crankcase is the sump, rockercovers etc, all the area where blow-by will cause pressure. being a 4age, you might want to take off the inlet side rocker cover and ensure that the pipe coming off it is free and unrestricted, as with the hose going to the inlet manifold and the pipe on the manifold too. this can often clog up with crusty oil gunk.

[ae86 slide]

ive ordered rear main, input shaft seal and seal carrier gasket.
with the input shaft seal is it a similar seal to the rear main? will i be able to pry out the old one and tap in the new one, or is there more to it?
thanks again

[takai]

Youll have to pull out the input shaft seal holder (4x12mm) and then install it in that, then put it back in. Dont pull off the bellhousing, causes more grief than its worth.
I did mine today to be on the safe side.

[Cool1]

What about your spigot bearing? Was it still alive last time you changed the seal? Cause if that bearing is fubar(which happens when dumping clutched etc) the seal isn't going to seal too well!

[takai]

The man brings up another very good point. The FWD 4AGs dont have spigot bearings standard. But when you convert them to RWD you need a spigot bearing. All to do with how the inputshaft is held. On a FWD gearbox it has 3 supplementary bearings so that it doenst need a spigot bearing, but the RWD gearboxes have the input shaft floating.