Alright so I found my oil leak. I apparently didn't do a very good job sealing up the timing cover for my non-existent water pump drive. Anyway, with that fixed now I am going to be putting it back together tomorrow.

I've heard mention of lubricating the crank seal? What if anything should be used for this, I've never seen one leak when installed dry.

 

Many of the new GM ones have a small bead of some tube of thick lube all the way around them in the package. I would think that any kind of lube suitable for engine building would be fine. Probably be ok with just a coat of engine oil even. -Jeff

 

Thats where my leak was coming from. Although I still have the original water pump. My seal around the water pump drive got kinked during install after my hotcam install.

 

I don't suppose lube provided would have a special GM part number? I guess that would make it too easy.

 

I had blocked off the hole with a washer on the back side, a few washers on the front, including a lock waser and a locking nut on the back. Sure enough it didn't move, but apparently it didn't do a very good job sealing. I don't think I would have found it without my UV test light.

I couldn't see anything with everything in place, so I pulled everything apart, removed the radiaotor, pulled off the water pump, pulled the crank pulley, pulled the opti and turned on the light. I was expecting to see this huge mess around the crank seal, but oh no, look up. I didn't think there would be that much oil getting splashed around that could get through my bolt setup.

I bought some of that 2 part forge stuff. The kind where you cut off what you need and then knead it together until it's a uniform color. You then work it into place, you've got like 3 minutes to work with it. 5 minutes after that it's already getting hard. After an hour you can drill and tap it. I took a big slug of that and pushed it into the hole on the front and blossomed it back out on the back of the timing cover so it holds itself in and should seal all leaks. After it set up I set the timing cover at such an angle so that it would hold water using my new plug. I poured some water in it and it hasn't leaked yet. So I can only assume I'm good. Now I just have to put it all back together.

You know it's funny, you can get the timing cover off with the oil pan in place, but you almost HAVE to drop the oil pan down to put it back in place. That sucks. I'm hoping that goes well today. All I have to do is scrape off the water pump gasket, make sure the all of the timing gasket is gone, lower the pan a little and put it all back together. Sounds easy right? Maybe I can do it all without having to change my oil which I just changed like 2 weeks ago.

Wish me luck.

 

Not that I know of. -Jeff

 

What's the thermal expansion of your new plug versus the timing cover? If the plastic doesn't expand as much as the cover, it could leak again. Maybe pour some boiling water on the cover a few times just as a precaution (unless you like to take it apart :D ).

BTW, where to your Opti vacuum tubes go? I just put a vented one on mine but haven't connected the tubes yet (at the moment they are insestuously plugged into each other).

Good Luck,


[Modified by John Row, 1:51 PM 3/18/2002]