Brand New Rear Main Seal Leaking ?

Hello all

I tackled the clutch job in my 2013 Tacoma over the weekend, and last night i was finally able to button everything up and get the truck running.

I took it out for a test drive around the block and all was good, parked the truck and crawled under to do a dummy check and noticed i was leaking oil from the bottom of the bell housing to where it connects to the engine.

When I had the truck apart I replaced the rear main seal since i figured why not I was already there and readily accessible and easy. Just pop the old one out and pop the new one in right ? I even followed the steps in the FSM




Could I have possibly installed this rear main seal wrong ? Any ideas on what could have caused this ? I'm going to have to drop the trans again this weekend to see what is going on since it leaked a noticeable amount overnight. Any help or suggestions appreciated.

 

Possibly rolled the lip or the common thing is not putting sealant (locktight) on the flywheel bolts. Those holes go straight thru and WILL leak. This is what we call a "do over"

 

This seems like a silly suggestion, but did you ensure that you didn't install the seal backwards?

 

The seal might just be crooked in the bore.

 

Did you wipe grease in the sill groove, where is contacts the crank, prior to install?

 

Looks like this will be a do-over indeed. I did use blue locktite on the flywheel bolts. Was I supposed to use something else instead ?

No silly suggestions at this point.. but the 2 sides of the rear main seal are completely differently so i'm very confident I didn't put it in backwards.

 

Did you remove the plate during the seal swap, or no? If yes, did you re-silicone the mating surfaces?

 

Lube it up!

 

Torspd - I didn't remove the plate.. I just tapped the new seal in. Also I did apply a light coat grease to the outer surface, could that have affected it ?

 

OEM seal?

 

Yessir oem seal. Bought it thru URD with the clutch kit and fly wheel

 

I wonder if the spring is missing from the seal.

 

But not the inner surface, as shown in my picture?

 

Its kind of hard to see from your picture, but did you pack the groove on the back side full of grease before installing ?

Also, for my "Do-Over" would i be able to reuse the flywheel bolts? These came included with the URD Torque-U flywheel. I'm not sure if they are torque-to-yield bolts or not? Y'all think I can re-use ?

 

Another thing, I do remember that when I put the new seal in, it was not sitting flush with the plate. it was sunk in a little bit. Does this affect the sealing ability of the rear main seal ?

 

Not the back of the groove. The swiping surface of the seal, where the crank rotates in it and makes contact with it.

 

If you tap in seal too hard spring can pop off of seal . I usually pack back of seal with white lithium grease to prevent spring from coming off.

 

I'll make sure to be generous with the lube across the swiping surface.. I'll have to look out for that spring as well. Do y'all know what the purpose of the spring is ?

 

To keep the seal tight against its mating component.

 

I believe the spring is what creates the seal from the pressure of the spring