Rear main oil seal r/r

[fos4us]

About to tackle a rear main oil seal replacement project on a 1991 explorer with the standard 4.0. Only forseable complication is the exhaust.
Does anyone know if the exhaust has to be removed when pulling the tranny; it looks real close. Perhaps this time the mechanic gods will look down on me and spare me the exhaust complications that are bound to arise when dealing with a 10 year old exhaust system. The rest looks pretty straight forward. Will probably start next weekend, any tips welcome.

 

[SteveVB]

I resorted to a sawsall to get my exhaust off when I removed my engine, but I dont dont know if the trans will slide out with the exhaust in place. I dont know if there is enough room between the top of the housing and the body to let it go back far enough.

Question, you sure you have a rear main bearing leak? You may want to check the intake manifold, they leak at the rear and the oil heads down the bellhousing and looks like a rear main.

To get the top bell housing to block bolts off I removed the upper intake made it a lot easier.

Hope that helps some.

Have Fun

 

[megillet]

fos4us,

I had to remove my exhaust to drop my tranny. I just unbolted the y-pipe and took off the catalytic converter and I was good to go. I honestly think that there is just not enough room to drop the tranny w/o taking off the exhaust, especially if you are dropping the tranny for the first time.

I also replaced my rear main oil seal because I have oil leaking out the back and bottom on my Expo. It helped the leak a little bit (not very noticeable, still burns 1 qt. for every 3000+miles), but the biggest thing that I got was no more coolant leak. I didn't realize that it was leaking there, I thought it was my heater core.

One more thing, I bought the rear main oil seal from Ford, it was about $60 which is a lot. Theirs comes with a metal sleeve which they told me HAD to be installed on any crankshaft even if it meant retrofitting a pre 1993. Well, I couldn't get the damned thing on if my life depended on it. I heated it up with a heat gun, in the oven, I tried everything, but it would only expand about 4 thousandths on an inch, and it was still about 20 thousandths of and inch too small in diameter. I went back to Ford, they talkeed to their mechanic who said that it takes a special tool to retrofit it onto the pre 1993 crankshafts. Of course I couldn't borrow the tool from them for an hour and my other friend that owns his own shop had never heard of such a thing, so I simply returned their oil seal and bought a generic one from the auto parts store for $12, and I am very happy to date minus all the time I wasted on Ford's ****ty engineering. Good luck and email me if you have any questions.

 

[fos4us]

Well the new seal is in, went in a little too easily for me to be comfortable with. If she leaks when I'm finished I'll probably fix it with a rag and a lighter.
The exhaust wasn't a problem at all; actually there was plenty of room to remove the tranny without touchng it.
Me and the tranny had some harsh words, some feelings were hurt (not to mention my #*@^%#$@ hands). But we're both over it now. It's bolted in place and all I have left is to re-attach my transfer case and drive shafts.

 

[Brian1]

I am just curious - how long did it take you? I may have to face this fix soon.

 

[fos4us]

Originally posted by Brian1
I am just curious - how long did it take you? I may have to face this fix soon.

It took me 2 full days, but I did it all myself w/o the help of any air tools or a tranny jack. I bought the seal at NAPA, and I was really worried that it would leak because it slid into place too easily (I pushed it into position by hand with a brass punch). I ran the engine for approximately an hour and there are no leaks so far.
As I said in an earlier post, I had no problem removing the transmission with the exhaust still attached. I did remove the transfer case to give me more room (and less weight) to move around. I jacked the truck up about a foot, and I was very surprised with how much room I had to work with.
In case your curious the price for the seal was $17.99 and a transmission pan gasket and filter kit was $30.04
Let me know if you have any more questions!

 

[Brian1]

You have an auto tranny? Mine is a manual so I would have to mess with the clutch. Right now I am in the middle of changing the shift rail plugs and shifter bushings. The oil seal will probably be my next major project.

 

[fos4us]

Originally posted by Brian1
You have an auto tranny? Mine is a manual so I would have to mess with the clutch. Right now I am in the middle of changing the shift rail plugs and shifter bushings. The oil seal will probably be my next major project.

Mine is an auto; hope yours goes as easily as mine did.
LOL!