Rear main seal

[kassim503]

Ive been noticing nice sized puddles everywhere the car comes to a rest. The rear main seal is pretty much done for along with some leakage along the oil pan seal.

According to the FSM the seal is one piece, and the napa online site confirms it.

Is there any way to replace the seal without separating the transmission and engine? I know that the 2 piece seals are able to be changed by dropping the pan, removing the rear brg cap, and yanking the old seal out and pushing the new one in. But if its one piece I have to separate the engine and tranny right? there is no magical trick that I can just do to slip the seal out the easy way right?

[asavage]

Is there any way to replace the seal without separating the transmission and engine?

No. You must pull either the trans or the engine to replace the rear main seal, period, full-stop, end of story.

Other things to consider: it's not uncommon for a groove to be worn into the crankshaft's seal surface, so that when you replace the seal it still leaks. There are two common approaches to this problem:

• Move the seal slightly, so that the seal lip is not in the groove anymore. This is how I and my local rebuilder fix the common seal leak problem in the SD and LD alternators, where the vacuum pump is bolted to the rear of the alternator. You move the seal by putting spacer ring behind it. This is usually not practical to repair a rear main seal, but is often the easiest fix for a front crank seal leak and groove;
• Speedi-Sleeve the crank. A Speedi-Sleeve (sold under different names) is a very thin metal sleeve, on the order or .010" wall thickness, and you use a special installation tool (sometimes included in the Speedi-Sleeve kit, other times not) and some Lock-Tite to press it onto the end of the crank.
  
  
  [click on image above for PDF with generic installation instructions. Page 7 lists sleeves & kits for the L24/L26/L28 and SD25, but not the SD22 nor the LD28.]
  
  NAPA lists two rear main Speedi-Sleeves for your L24 (and the LD28 !: same part Nos.!):
  
  Balkamp BK 6002543, $12
  
  
  NAPA Seals NOS99317, $43
  
  This last one comes with both a flanged sleeve and an installer tool, so it'd be my first choice, unless I had the "master sleeve installer kit" available.
  
  NAPA does not seem to list Speedi-Sleeves for the rear of the SD22/25 (which use a rope/two-piece rear main seal, BTW).

Both methods (moving the seal; installing a sleeve) work well.