Rear main seal, finally done…flywheel too

Some of you may know about the dilemma of my rear main seal.  Just look at the pictures of it below (few posts down).  It was nasty!  The outside was sprayed with orange sealant; and when I removed it last week with the carrier, the inside was filled with grease.  Grease?  Some fellow s14’ers said to leave it alone, others to change it.  The RMS is a recurring issue for many; and if not changed correctly, a persistent leak occurs.  

I chose to replace it-along with everything else.  I bought a new RMS carrier, bolts,  and dowels.  Throwing the baby out with the bath water!  I basically got all the new parts listed here (except for the paper gasket, I used a hi temp gastket maker instead).

Ok, here’s what it looked like before I started.

 

The new parts (excluding bolts and dowels):

 

To press in the seal, I used two pieces of plywood and a rubber mallet.  This method got it perfectly flush with the new carrier.  Since this is a replacement seal, it must be pressed in an additional 1-2mm in order to sit on “fresh” steel.  I used a metal ring to tap the seal 1mm from the carrier edge.

 

 

Now, the next issue was removing my pilot bearing.  It was kind of frozen.  A shot of PB Blaster didn’t work too well.  The good ole’ toilet paper method was needed.  First, get a wad of TP; second, wet  and roll pieces small enought to get into the bearing hole; third, repeat #2 until the cavity is full; fourth, get something that will will fit nice and snug into the bearing hole (for me, a 3/8″ 4″ extension worked nicely) and give it some moderately sharp blows; fifth, remove tool, repack, repeat #4; sixth, eventually the bearing will slide out due to the displacement of the tool in the bearing cavity.

 

Finally, I can replace my newly lightened and resurfaced flywheel.  I used blue locker/sealant and also a dab of silicone gasket maker to minimize the possibility of oil leaking through the bolts.

 

Phew, that’s over!  Now time to install the clutch and tranny.  🙂

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Arroyo Seco Grand Prix II

This morning I met up with some M3 peeps in Glendale for our weekly G2G.   It was a pretty good turn out with 5 M3’s, a couple e30 325’s, an e36 M3 and my Mini.  We’re thinking of going to a night G2G instead due to the higher traffic volume in the day.  Mariano’s M still takes the “clean” category.

Arroyo Seco GP

 

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tranny input shaft seal replacement

So, last week when I was test fitting my e24 tranny mounts a curious thing happened.  As I was lifting from the rear of the tranny, fluid started gushing out of the input shaft casing.  A quick post on s14.net netted this is not normal.  I ordered a new seal from BMA and this is the procedure:

Remove the cover plate:

The culprit:

 

The old seal was yanked out with a seal puller:

 

 The new one pounded in with a socket and mallet:

Blue sealer/locker on the bolts since they go into the tranny case:

 

Finished:

 

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tranny selector rod seal replacement

Here are some pictures of my selector rod seal replacement. I used a pick to wedge it out. Then tapped it back in with a small rubber mallet.

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couldn’t stand it, I’m doing the RMS

Going back under the car and staring at that ugly excuse for a rear main seal, I just couldn’t resist. The rear main seal will be torn out; and just in case, the housing will be replaced too. Posting my dilemma on s14.net netted about a 50/50 do-it don’t-do-it ratio. I flipped the perverbial coin.

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…wrong flywheel bolts…

I ordered 28mm bolts instead of the 22mm. Crap. Attaching my flywheel today was gonna make my weekend! Oh, well…I got millions of things to do still. Maybe I’ll start the brakes.

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My rebuilt shifter…

Here are some pictures of my rebuilt shifter.  It’s all clean and tight. Look at the “before” pictures a few posts back  Everything is new except for the arm and transmission bracket.  Shiny UUC DSSR…

The only hiccup was the lower shifter bushing was too wide for the DSSR end (see top middle picture). A little shaving with a utility knife cured it (top left picture).

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sent my flywheel to get lightened

During lunch to day I set out to Top End Performance in North Hollywood to drop off my flywheel.   They’ll be resurfacing, lightening, and balancing.  Check previous posts for “before” pictures.

UPDATE:  I got my flywheel back.

 

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cleaning shifter components

This afternoon I did two things: replace the coolant reservoir in my wife’s Mini Cooper S; and clean some of the M’s shifter components.  There’s a bunch of new parts that will be installed, so a nice bath in Simple Green was needed of reused ones.  For the tougher grime and grease Goof Off worked great.  Results…

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flywheel removal continued

Yesterday I had one goal – to remove my flywheel.   I succeeded with help from some newly bought screw/bolt remover set from Harbor Freight.  The hex bolts holding the pressure plate were covered in some tough orange sealant which made insterting a hex socket difficult; susequently, stripping the bolts.  The set worked great, I just drilled a bit into the head, hammered the remover spike in, and torqued it out with a box wrench.  Three of the six bolts needed this procedure.

 

Now that the hard part was done, the pressure plate and the clutch disk came out.  The clutch disk looked to be in decent condition.  The pressue plate surface looked OK too.

The flywheel was next.  I used my Harbor Freight impact air wrench for the bolt removal.  It worked like a charm.  All out in 1 minute.  Here she is.  Some of the pics came out blurry, argg.

So guess what I found behind the flywheel?  How fun!  More of the mysterious orange stuff.  This time covering the rear main seal.  Great.  After finding this crud around the exterior and interior oil pan bolts, it seems that a previous owner had a mechanic “take care” the leaks and/or leak prone areas.  But the RMS, c’mon!  Now this is my dilemma…do I change the seal out?  It doesn’t look like its been leaking too much.  Then again, it hasn’t been run on the street in 7 years. Maybe idling doesn’t provide enough pressure to produce a leak.  The RMS on these cars are really finicky.  Some members on s14.net say to just leave it alone if little to no oil is present. And, if you do change it, it’s not guaranteed that it’ll all be fine and dandy.  The new seal must sit on “virgin” steel for a good contact.  Oh and the seal carrier may be skewed too over time.  I don’t know…

The picture on the right is the mangled flywheel dowl pin used by the PO.

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