oil leak from crank seal behind flywheel

[GR40]

They told me that no question is stupid and I believe them. I noticed the other day some oil under my gearbox and traced it back behind the flywheel so my hypothesis is that the seal there is now leaking! The odd part is that my engine was rebuild 10.000km ago (6.200miles) and the seal has failed way too soon! What could cause this so soon? Is it my heavy foot!? Is there a specific seal for the g40 engine? Could I have used the wrong ones if there is such a thing!? What makes them fail?

[hayesey]

was the seal definitely replaced when the engine was rebuilt?

I guess it could have been installed incorrectly or a cheap replacement was used which isn't a good enough quality part.

I did this with a gearbox once.  The lip on the input shaft seal hadn't sat right when I did some work on a gearbox and it caused it to leak.

[GR40]

Guess I ll have to take it apart and check ! Just a pain in the ass. It was definitely a new seal I have photos of the new ones on the engine! This car has no end of the random things that go wrong with it.

[hayesey]

yeah if it's leaking then I don't think you have any choice but to remove it.  You'll certainly need to get the box & flywheel off.  If the lip is folded round on part of the crank shaft you might get away with just poking it in without having to remove the engine end cover.  Then again, you might want to replace the seal to make sure when you've gone as far as taking the box etc... off!!!

[GR40]

There is a slight chance that the seal has melted. I remember, one night, I was pushing the car from trafic light to trafic light and the water temperature rise to 100 just before the oil light came on. Probably from overheating to the point it thined the oil out and the pump couldn't rise it to the valve head. Well guess we ll find out next week when I ll get the box out. I am not looking forward to it though!

[GR40]

Finally got around on fixing the leak (or rather leaks). Took the gearbox out and the flywheel. Both seals, the one behind the flywheel and the one on the gearbox input shaft where leaking. One was leaking oil and the other gear oil making a mess on the clutch and baffling me of where the hell the leak was coming from. The gearbox seal was a mess when we got it out but the one on the engine was looking solid and new, can't understand why it was leaking. I even double checked the numbers on the seal and they came out correct but there was an obvious trace of oil coming around the seal while on the car. This time I used a good sealant on the outer ring of the seal too just in case.