Sealing a WM L98 Rear Main

[Immortality]

A friend for Trev.

 

[Happydaze]

I was quoted $700 labour + cost of cover plate & seal

 

[Fu Manchu]

Ouch.
Cover plate need not be replaced in the case of repairing the rear main seal itself.

 

[Brysha89]

i know the plate wasn't needing replacement but for 120 buck a genuine gm part from mace the whole plate and seal seemed worth it to me

 

[Fu Manchu]

Furry muff.

 

[gtrboyy]

I'd replace the plate...holden brought out a revision part years ago as some cars it was the plate leaking & besides rather pay a little extra for whole thing then risk having to pull it apart again.


On a car hoist auto or g/box out easiest way...at home in driveway I'd rather pull engine out aftewr compression/oil pressure test then go to town on it especially if it has more than 200k on it

 

[VT&VX]

I have that leak.
Reading the replies (useful ones only), the option to replace plate and seal has additional expense in parts, but is the seal already pressed into the plate?
I assume a mechanic would have all required tools to just replace the seal in the existing plate.

So saving $95 by just buying the seal, means a mechanic would be required to do the job, but spending $120 for plate with seal means I could end up laying under the partially disassembled car in driveway and then still need to get it to the mechanic.

 

[someguy360]

Do it right the first time, while stop leak may fix the leak it will come back, and putting stop leak in your oil creates a whole different series of trouble.

VT&VX the rear seal is one plate assembly, you should be able to do it at home provided you can get the car high enough to split the trans and engine to get to it. it's 8 or so bolts and the seal is integrated into the plate from memory so you just pop it off and whack the new one up and reverse the process, no special tools required etc.

It's not like the old engines where the seal was under the crank journals etc, you can just do it with basic tools.

 

[07GTS]

PITA to get the the LS rear seal, even more so if manual, also dont use grease on the seal to crank surface just some engine oil, grease will over time wear out and not allow oil there so can dry out and wear mark in crank and stop sealing

 

[Lex]

I have that leak.
Reading the replies (useful ones only), the option to replace plate and seal has additional expense in parts, but is the seal already pressed into the plate?
I assume a mechanic would have all required tools to just replace the seal in the existing plate.

So saving $95 by just buying the seal, means a mechanic would be required to do the job, but spending $120 for plate with seal means I could end up laying under the partially disassembled car in driveway and then still need to get it to the mechanic.

From my reading on the problem, everyone who just tried replacing the seal, without the plate failed. Had to do again.

Still looking after your father? If so, how old is he now?