Well as some of you may know i got a leaking rear main seal. Since it's located in a difficult spot to reach i've heard the labor to get it done is very expencive($500-$800). But i was watching TRUCKS last weekend and they had this product on there that you pour into the engine with every oil change and it's supposed to stop the rear main seal leak. Has anyone heard of this product or even better does anybody have any experience with this product? Thanks!
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'99 Black SR5 3.4 Auto 4x4, 265/75 Nitto Terra Grapplers, Removed Running Boards, Deckplate Mod, Rear Diff Breather Mod, Husky Liner Mats, Disabled DRL's, Yakima Rack System, rear storage system, Cobra CB, OL CB Mount, IPF 968's
sounds like snake oil to me... to be honest its really not all that difficult to drop your tranny and replace it yourself... worse case scenario you get a buddy and a FSM and do it over a weekend. its a little 20$ seal and your going to have to have some SST or a puller to get the old one out. id say for the inexperienced wrencher it would take maybe 8 hours to drop the tranny the first time, without the FSM, then its just removing a few more bolts to expose the rear main seal, pulling the old one out, putting the new one in and reassembling
heres a pic of what you need to get to...
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'02 4Runner Lifted/Locked/Armored
'07 4Runner V8 Sport Edition 4WD
There's plenty of products that "repair seal leaks", but they're really only temporary fixes. The only correct fix is to replace the seal.
It all depends on how much longer you plan on keeping the truck. If you're gonna sell it, plug it up with some oil additave and send it on it's way. But, if you are going to keep the truck, I would shy away from the "band-aid" fixes and replace the seal. Like runnerup said, it's a daunting task, but not as hard as it sounds. (And of course the shops will make it sound alot harder than it really is because they wanna reserve the right to charge you more hours if they can't make their mortgage that month)
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Millennium Silver 2001 4Runner SportR5lander Photo Timeline - Solid Axle Club
All-Pro, Fox, Eibach, OME, Goodyear, Trail Gear, Yukon, Solo Fabworks, Marlin, TJM, Smittybilt, Front Range Offroad, Inchworm, Addco, Savage Offroad, B&M, Borla, Pioneer, Cobra Northeast 4Runner Owners Association
I plan on keeping the rig for as long as possible. I was thinking about using the leak stopping additive temporarily till i have time to fix the seal which may be a month or so. I wanna take it to the local orv park but i wanna do it the responsible way. Thanks for your replies, oh are there any write-ups about changing the main seal on a 3.4 auto?
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'99 Black SR5 3.4 Auto 4x4, 265/75 Nitto Terra Grapplers, Removed Running Boards, Deckplate Mod, Rear Diff Breather Mod, Husky Liner Mats, Disabled DRL's, Yakima Rack System, rear storage system, Cobra CB, OL CB Mount, IPF 968's
I plan on keeping the rig for as long as possible. I was thinking about using the leak stopping additive temporarily till i have time to fix the seal which may be a month or so. I wanna take it to the local orv park but i wanna do it the responsible way. Thanks for your replies, oh are there any write-ups about changing the main seal on a 3.4 auto?
Just let it leak for a month if that's all... don't pour any of that sort of crap into your engine.
I plan on keeping the rig for as long as possible.
I was thinking about using the leak stopping additive temporarily...
Those are conflicting statements.
You Either want to keep your rig as long as possible OR you want to take a chance on clogging up engine internals with a temporary leak stop voodoo liquid ??
No, no, no, if the oil loss is just a drip here and there, keep checking/adding oil as needed yet wait for a Real repair.
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2001 Limited 4WD - 346+K - SunfireRed\Thunder Cloud; - 265/75/16 Michelin A/T2s - Fat Pat's 1.5" BL - StopTech ANGLED rotors - In series 699 trans cooler, New Yota1 transmission, All new OEM suspension front to rear.
@infamousRNR
and I have pulled an automatic transmission and it's a fairly involved job but not technically hard. Somebody above said 8 hours. You might be able to get it done that quick but a safer estimate is give yourself a weekend. Repair times for Sean and I are skewed because we have to deal with filming everything so who knows how long this would take us if we didn't have to worry about camera angles, lighting and making sure we're explaining things well enough for the viewer. I just know from experience there's always something that happens during a repair that derails your progress.
Here's the videos we made for swapping out Sean's transmission. These videos will get you as far as getting the transmission out of your way so you have access to pull the flex plate and get at the rear main seal. Good Luck!
__________________ "My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it!"
Well as some of you may know i got a leaking rear main seal. Since it's located in a difficult spot to reach i've heard the labor to get it done is very expencive($500-$800). But i was watching TRUCKS last weekend and they had this product on there that you pour into the engine with every oil change and it's supposed to stop the rear main seal leak. Has anyone heard of this product or even better does anybody have any experience with this product? Thanks!
If you are trying to do this by yourself for the first time, I do not recommend it. That transmission is much heavier that it looks and without a transmission jack there's no way you'd ever get it mounted back up again. You would be in probably $250 in parts and tools alone to do the job yourself as well plus a weekend of busted knuckles and grime, or $500 to have it done by someone who's actually done it before.
If you do end up going the stop leak route, there's two different kinds. Some stop leaks are made to just recondition the seals themselves, causing the seals to swell and close up whatever leak might be there. The second, more dangerous kind will solidify on any surface. This is the kind where you hear horror stories of gunk and grime clogging up key parts.
i did forget to mention in my post above is you could skip some of the things we did like separating the transfer case from the transmission. You might not even have to drop the transmission/transfer case assembly to the ground. Just pull it back far enough so you can get the flex plate off and then replace the seal.
A transmission jack is sort of a crucial tool to making this a much easier job. The one I have is from Harbor Freight and it works great.
__________________ "My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it!"
To me the most pain in the ass part was removing the one dust cover bolt. If that bolt is missing then you know it's been apart before. Sliding back the trans may be enough. But removing the XFR case shifter, trans linkage, and unplugging the harness connectors to allow it to go back far enough. If your removing the exhaust to make more room cut the nuts off there the cat bolts to the crossover pipe.
i did forget to mention in my post above is you could skip some of the things we did like separating the transfer case from the transmission. You might not even have to drop the transmission/transfer case assembly to the ground. Just pull it back far enough so you can get the flex plate off and then replace the seal.
A transmission jack is sort of a crucial tool to making this a much easier job. The one I have is from Harbor Freight and it works great.
Harbor Freight is awesome. Not for professionals since their tools don't always hold up to contant use, but for us DIY mechanics they are inexpensive ways to save time and do jobs we could never do otherwise. Almost my entire garage of tools if from Harbor Freight, all bought with 20% off coupons LOL!