John Lee's Front Main Seal Replacment and Add Balancer Retention Bolt (I6)

[Sharps40]

An increasing drip from the front main seal to the floor. It had to happen eventually. Rebuild was 1994 and only 200 miles run on it when I bought John Lee in late March 2013. But, do I want to drain the radiator and unhook all them new hoses....no! (Course if ya still have the I6 Radiator on the forward mounts, all bets are off, pull the radiator. I have the V8 radiator on the rear mounts so a simple lift and plenty of room.)

So, unbolt the top clamp, pull the fan and pulleys and belt and raise the radiator about 6 inches and hang it from the hood. Nice, now I have the room needed to install the blanacer puller and work the balancer off for repairs. While out, I cleaned it, inspected the rubber union and installed a National/Fed Mogul balancer repair sleeve. The balancer shaft was scored from years of runnin on the seals and the seal was dry and cracked/worn. So, a leak. Then, carefully pull out the old crank seal from the timing cover, clean up the recess and tap in a new National/Fed Mogul seal. Lotsa grease on everything for the install and with the radiator up, there is enough room to tap, tap, tap, the balancer, with a variety of medium and large SmasherWackers until it reseats on the crank snout....Boing, a change in pitch and you know the balancer is fully seated.



Now, balancer and new seals in place. Time to mod the crank snout for a balancer retention bolt. The V8 bolt is too long and hasn't enough thread for the I6 so I purchased a 2" long, fully threaded bolt in 7/16x20 to go with the Mr Gasket washers from the V8 balancer bolt kit....(adding threads to a grade 8 bolt is an exercise in futility, just buy a somewhat shorter, fully threaded bolt and be done with it.) In any event, there is enough room to drill a 25/64 tap hole in the snout with the radiator up but ya have to raise the engine about an inch to get the drill positioned for a straight in hole. If you don't raise the motor its gonna need a real small drill and a much shorter bit than I have....a 90 degree headed drill might fit w/o raising the engine, but, I just lifted it. Its only another 15 minutes work to unbolt the engine stands.



Now, I had a dull tap, even in iron it rolled in threads instead of cutting them so I took a break to hit the store for a good tap wrench and a spanky new and sharp 7/16x20 tap. But, drillin the hole, watch yer angles, get it straight in and go about 1/8" deeper than the length of the bolt beyond the washers. I use WD40 to start the threads then switch to axle grease to catch the chips and move em outta the way.



Once the new bolt and the newly drilled and tapped snout is swarfed clean with brake cleaner and all the chips blasted away and the pulley groove is dry/clean, install the new bolt with medium strength blue locktite, the flat washer and the lock washer. Snug it up tight. Clean up, start up and go ride....no more leaks! Yee Haaa!!! Hope the rear main don't start leakin!