LS1 oil seal

[madsav]

Had a mechanic look at a small oil leak on the ls1 today, he said not 100% sure but it looks like the oil it eaither coming from the front of the sump gasket or the front main oil seal.
Should i try to do both jobs myself or leave it to a mechanic to fix it?

[Anglosaxon]

I got the same dilemma bud only worse, the rear main on my 5.7 is leaking! been putting it off for ages now, it really just comes down to how good a shed and tool setup you've got versus how much money you got to spend plus how much time you have spare and whether you can be f#@$ed with it or not, main seals and sump gaskets aren't rocket science to change but lots of dirty hard work, once upon a time i wouldn't have dreamed of paying someone else to do something like that, but these days,,,,

[TonyJZX]

i think i got that too

its cheaper to just dump in more oil whenever you can be stuffed

[Anglosaxon]

Yep thats the one, and the odd bottle of engine stop leak.

[madsav]

LOL yeah i had the rear main seal done about 4 months ago, $530 later just for labour and another $80 for the seal it stoped that leak , but yeah it just annoys the crap out of me when i find a leak untill its fixed. was gonna try this bottle of stop oil leak crap $15 see if that helps

[TonyJZX]

they have to dump the front K frame and crap to get to it

i wonder if it affects the front alignment

meh... i'll keep dumping in oil... my car steers straight and i dont wanna muck anything u p

[Anglosaxon]

Yeah it does bug me too, but if im gonna drop the trans and/or lift the motor out to do the main seals there's a heap of other things id like to do at the same time (rings and bearings, new gearbox, etc) so I'm putting it off for now, it doesnt leak too much I just have to watch dripping oil on mates paved drives (moaning wnkers!)

If you use a decent engine stop leak (wynns for oil) and chuck it in when you do a oil and filter change it does make quite a difference (depending on the severity of wear to the seal).

They still make the stuff.

[madsav]

With that stop leak stuff, do u have to dump the oil you currently have running in your car, or can you just let it run with the oil?only asking cause i just spent $80 on oil 2 weeks ago

[Anglosaxon]

I reckon it works better if ya put it in with fresh oil when you do an oil change, and if yur car is using sht loads of oil use two bottles instead of one, ive seen mixed results over the years from it makin fk all difference (on really rooted engines with fkd oil rings) to massive improvement on a couple of mates cars, dont go the shitty obscure unknown brands bud id give 2 bottles of wynns a try at next oil change i reckon it works well sometimes aye.

[dirt drifter]

by front main oil seal, u mean the timing cover/harmonic balancer seal right? balancer should come off easy enough with the radiator out (good excuse to change coolant at the same time) and a decent puller.

so ive read in my research its not a good idea to use the balancer bolt to pull the balancer back onto the crank, people have stripped crank threads that way. get a length of thread bar, wind that into the crank and use a nut on the thread bar to pull the balancer back on.

and the balancer bolt is a one-use-only bolt (torque to yield). so buy a new one.