Quote:
Originally Posted by craigs69
Today was the big day. After months of setbacks, I finally took the car for it's first post restoration drive. The weather is looking nice for tomorrow, so I was hoping to take the car for a nice drive, but the rear seal seems to be leaking pretty bad. I don't know if I want to take the chance of slobbering up the underneath of the car, so I may call it off. I will be pulling the motor again over the winter and replacing the main seal with a graphite rope. I have considered trying another BOP viton seal, because I know that the design is superior to the rope, however, my application was not optimum for the BOP seal. I changed the seal with the crank in the motor, so I was not able to use an indicator to check the concentricity between the seal diameter and the bearing bore. I did however probe the main cap on a CMM and found the seal diameter to be out .0075" from the bearing bore. The instructions for the seal state that there should be no more than .005". I also was at the low end of the tolerance when you measure the distance that the seal is sticking up from the parting line, so I am not 100 percent certain that there was enough crush when I bolted the main cap back on. With all things considered, I will probably give the BOP seal another shot in my next motor, but this one is getting a rope. At least I have all winter to get it done.
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Hang in there Craig - it is a labor of love no doubt. One of the "good" things about messing with old cars is that when you get frustrated, just leave it the hell alone for a week or so. Its not like a pet that has to be feed, etc...lol.
I "like" the BOP seal, but in my mind it is less forgiving than the graphite seal. The graphite seal has a bit or parasitic drag, but dang it works. Someone else mentioned that the BOP seal is better in a 400 w/ smaller mains. Maybe so. I start w/ the BOP because I've got a test stand and can run the motor first and I wouldn't be ready to shoot someone if it leaks! Watch the rear of the oil pan as that is a source of pesky leaks as well.
I know what your saying about "restored" cars. There is a culture of folks out there that do a crappy job and then call it restored. I just bought a "restored" 76 455 TA from a guy who bought it freshly restored a few years earlier - he lost 5000 on it and I paid damn good money anyway (minus the 5000 he lost). I swear the carb had some overspray around the base of it where the motor was painted with the carb on.
Anyway - hang in there and good luck. This forum is full of folks (like me) who've made plenty of mistakes and will likely continue to from time to time.