Rear Main

[tsm1@domain.elided (Tom Mandera)]

Well, I recently (2 weeks?) replaced my rear main oil seal on my '72 304V8...

Of course, the motor was dangling from an engine hoist in my front driveway,
and it was around 11:30pm when we changed the seal, but...

I think you want to pull the crank bearing cap (or whatever Landry called
it) below the seal.. should give you better access.  We didn't pull this
until later..

We drilled through the 26yr old gasket to put a screw driver through, then
pried the seal out to where we could get some vice-grips on it, pull it out
enough to cut the other half of the seal, and then it came out easily.

We then dropped the bearing cap to replace the two side seals...  the IH
shop manual says to use a piece of 1/8" welding rod, get a ball on the end,
grind it smooth, and use it to insert the new seals... even though I had a
new welder and was dyin' to play, I couldn't get it right.. in the meantime,
my stepfather used one of my T-handled allen wrenches to slide both seals in.

What'll it take with the motor in the truck?  I dunno... but that's why I
planned on changing the seal while the motor was dangling over the sidewalk
instead of after I put it in!

Naturally I didn't take any pictures during the process... I had way too
much to GET DONE to take time to take pictures... and, it was late and dark,
and my camera doesn't take such great pics then...

-Tom Mandera, Helena MT
http://www.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout