Which is better? Install cover with seal or install cover then seal?
October 5th, 2015, 11:10 PM
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Which is better? Install cover with seal or install cover then seal?
Hi,
I'm an old Toyota guy. Was a dealer mechanic for about 7 years about 40 years ago and Then went into the military for a couple of decades. Inspect homes for a living now but I've owned and fixed Toyotas or Subarus since the 70's so I hadn't worked on an American vehicle newer than 1975 since I went in the military in 1975.
Needed a truck robust enough to haul a car trailer, but Tundras are priced too high for my budget right now so I bought a used 2001 Chevy Tahoe 4WD with a 5.3lt. Vortec a few weeks back. Everyone told me they're pretty tough and will do the job without a sweat so I figured I'd give it a shot - it would be my first American car since my Firebird Formula 400 in 1969.
Picked up the truck. Seemed to drive and handle well enough for its age; but not long after I smelled oil burning. Thought it might be a loose valve cover or something. Turned out to be oil dripping from the bell housing or thereabouts. It was using a quart about every 300 miles. Funny thing is, it didn't start leaking until I'd changed the oil - WTF?? Figured it was coming from the rear main seal but couldn't get to it right away, so I kept it topped up and made sure I parked over absorbent at night.
Finally got around to it. When the hell did American cars go to metric nuts and bolt sizes, anyway?!! As I'm tearing it down I notice all kinds of clues that it's been torn down before - mostly that whoever worked on it probably never saw a torque wrench that he liked - everything was waaaay over-tightened, ends of some bolts or nuts rounded off a little, wiring harnesses not back in their clips and connectors taped together because some ******** couldn't figure out how to get them apart and apparently destroyed the connector locks in the process. Jeez.
Finally got the transmission and transfer case out, pull the flex plate (bolts waaay too tight) and I can see that the rear cover has been off before (another bolt head where the socket apparently slipped). Pulled the cover with the seal. Bolts felt way too tight again. Seal doesn't look that bad and the surface on the end of the crank where the seal rides is smooth, no grooves or pitting or cracks at the bolt holes, thank God (Figured if he didn't know how to use a torque wrench he might have forced bolts into holes with oil in them and cracked the end of the crank but it looks OK.
So, after getting it apart I'm thinking maybe the seal and cover had been misaligned relative to the crank. Did a little homework online and see that some folks are using alignment tools to get the cover aligned and then install the seal using another tool, while some are installing the cover with the seal already installed in the cover.
One online manual says the rear cover has to be perfectly centered and that one has to use tool J41476 to align it and then tool J41479-2A to install the seal in the cover once the cover is installed and torqued down. Another simply says install the cover and then use tool J41479 to press the seal into place. Though I saw various videos of folks tapping those seals into the cover with a hammer while the cover lay flat on a bench, and then installing the cover and seal together, I'm thinking option #1 will make for a more precise install. Any opinions?
By the way, saw another thread on here somewhere where the oil gauge read about 40psi but the needle jumped around a lot and how the needle jumped to nearly 80 psi on the highway. Someone opined that the gauge was defective and someone else felt like there was a bypass valve sticking. Back in my day, we'd have looked for a sticking bypass valve when we saw really high pressures like that and probably for a weak bypass valve spring to explain the bobbing needle. What's the commonly known issue with these? Sticking bypass? Weak Spring? Bad gauge? All of the above or something else?
I'm an old Toyota guy. Was a dealer mechanic for about 7 years about 40 years ago and Then went into the military for a couple of decades. Inspect homes for a living now but I've owned and fixed Toyotas or Subarus since the 70's so I hadn't worked on an American vehicle newer than 1975 since I went in the military in 1975.
Needed a truck robust enough to haul a car trailer, but Tundras are priced too high for my budget right now so I bought a used 2001 Chevy Tahoe 4WD with a 5.3lt. Vortec a few weeks back. Everyone told me they're pretty tough and will do the job without a sweat so I figured I'd give it a shot - it would be my first American car since my Firebird Formula 400 in 1969.
Picked up the truck. Seemed to drive and handle well enough for its age; but not long after I smelled oil burning. Thought it might be a loose valve cover or something. Turned out to be oil dripping from the bell housing or thereabouts. It was using a quart about every 300 miles. Funny thing is, it didn't start leaking until I'd changed the oil - WTF?? Figured it was coming from the rear main seal but couldn't get to it right away, so I kept it topped up and made sure I parked over absorbent at night.
Finally got around to it. When the hell did American cars go to metric nuts and bolt sizes, anyway?!! As I'm tearing it down I notice all kinds of clues that it's been torn down before - mostly that whoever worked on it probably never saw a torque wrench that he liked - everything was waaaay over-tightened, ends of some bolts or nuts rounded off a little, wiring harnesses not back in their clips and connectors taped together because some ******** couldn't figure out how to get them apart and apparently destroyed the connector locks in the process. Jeez.
Finally got the transmission and transfer case out, pull the flex plate (bolts waaay too tight) and I can see that the rear cover has been off before (another bolt head where the socket apparently slipped). Pulled the cover with the seal. Bolts felt way too tight again. Seal doesn't look that bad and the surface on the end of the crank where the seal rides is smooth, no grooves or pitting or cracks at the bolt holes, thank God (Figured if he didn't know how to use a torque wrench he might have forced bolts into holes with oil in them and cracked the end of the crank but it looks OK.
So, after getting it apart I'm thinking maybe the seal and cover had been misaligned relative to the crank. Did a little homework online and see that some folks are using alignment tools to get the cover aligned and then install the seal using another tool, while some are installing the cover with the seal already installed in the cover.
One online manual says the rear cover has to be perfectly centered and that one has to use tool J41476 to align it and then tool J41479-2A to install the seal in the cover once the cover is installed and torqued down. Another simply says install the cover and then use tool J41479 to press the seal into place. Though I saw various videos of folks tapping those seals into the cover with a hammer while the cover lay flat on a bench, and then installing the cover and seal together, I'm thinking option #1 will make for a more precise install. Any opinions?
By the way, saw another thread on here somewhere where the oil gauge read about 40psi but the needle jumped around a lot and how the needle jumped to nearly 80 psi on the highway. Someone opined that the gauge was defective and someone else felt like there was a bypass valve sticking. Back in my day, we'd have looked for a sticking bypass valve when we saw really high pressures like that and probably for a weak bypass valve spring to explain the bobbing needle. What's the commonly known issue with these? Sticking bypass? Weak Spring? Bad gauge? All of the above or something else?
