Rear main seal

[Myrunr2010]

Ok, let's take a deep breath.

It appears that my attempt to avoid confusion, created confusion. For simplicity sake, I assumed (silly me) that when you mentioned the back of the block earlier in the thread you were referring to the seal retainer. I didn't want to start splitting hairs and confuse anyone.

To be clear, the seal retainer bolts to the back of the block and is sealed with FIPG. I see no reason to remove the seal retainer unless you know for a fact that the FIPG is leaking. The seal presses into the seal retainer, and NEEDS TO SIT FLUSH WITH THE SEAL RETAINER. If you bottom out the seal in the seal retainer, it will leak. The problem is that the OEM seal superceeded to a new part number and the new part number is slightly thinner than the original seal. So even if you buy the OEM part from Toyota, you can seat it too far into the retainer.

p.s. Thanks for the mention. I might not have ever seen this if I didn't get an email.

Awesome. Thank you for replying! My old seal looks wicked. For some reason the top of it is sitting ~.25" proud of the seal retainer (not how I put it in originally) and it has about an inch and a half tear in it. Any idea what could cause that?

 

[Myrunr2010]

Hopefully you were already typing when I posted my response. Please refer to post #38.

Yeah I was...trying to reply on this blackberry is a chore!

 

[TheDurk]

[MENTION=118207]midcoma[/MENTION] ? [MENTION=10169]TheDurk[/MENTION] ?

Any input?

Ashamed to say I don't remember what I did. I did remove and replace the retainer because the DIY I followed did that. I suspect it was flush with the surface.

Whichever, it hasn't leaked.

 

[Myrunr2010]

I'm pretty sure I ordered these from the same dealer, however, they are clearly different in design....so which one is right?

 

[Myrunr2010]

So I got it all buttoned back up, seated the seal flush to the front face of the retainer, and im still getting a massive amount of oil leaking. I did pull off the seal retainer before realizing that i didn't need to. I FIPG the crap out of it when i put it back on, but perhaps that is the cause for the leak? I just cant imagine the rear main seal leaking as bad as it is when i just put it on. Especially considering i put it on consistent with what other members have said they did.

:bash: :bash: :bash:

 

[Chuckles89]

So I got it all buttoned back up, seated the seal flush to the front face of the retainer, and im still getting a massive amount of oil leaking. I did pull off the seal retainer before realizing that i didn't need to. I FIPG the crap out of it when i put it back on, but perhaps that is the cause for the leak? I just cant imagine the rear main seal leaking as bad as it is when i just put it on. Especially considering i put it on consistent with what other members have said they did.

:bash: :bash: :bash:

Did you ever get this fixed? I have to do my rear main seal here soon...

 

[Myrunr2010]

Did you ever get this fixed? I have to do my rear main seal here soon...

Yeah, it was silly. It ended up boiling down to an issue of too much crank case pressure due to a clogged pcv line pushing the new seal out. I guess the old seal was baked in place.

 

[Myrunr2010]

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-gen-t4rs/215257-clutch-replacement-writeup.html

Write up on clutch replacement, talks about doing the seal too

 

[tslavin30]

Yeah, it was silly. It ended up boiling down to an issue of too much crank case pressure due to a clogged pcv line pushing the new seal out. I guess the old seal was baked in place.

Reviving a once dead thread for my impossible to fix rms, I see you mentioned this as an issue to fix it once upon a time but could you explain which pcv line it was causing the pressure here? I’ve had to pull my trans twice now with no luck and any info on a secondary issue cause would help!

 

[Myrunr2010]

Reviving a once dead thread for my impossible to fix rms, I see you mentioned this as an issue to fix it once upon a time but could you explain which pcv line it was causing the pressure here? I’ve had to pull my trans twice now with no luck and any info on a secondary issue cause would help!

Looking back, it was pretty dumb. I had oil showing up in my intake, which I attributed to excessive oil blowing out of the PCV. So I put an inline (non-automotive) oil catch on the line from the PCV back to the intake. Found that catch can to be 100% clogged, thus preventing the PCV from functioning properly.