98 V70: Front Crank Seals & WP Leaking Topic is solved

[sleddriver]

Evidently, the sled motor so enjoys my hands under her hood the past 7 months, she's feeling abandoned now that much of the work is finished. Thus, she's acting out again to draw more attention...and I thought chicks were high-maintainence!

First, I finally found the source of the oil spots on the garage floor: Leaking exhaust cam seal. Cheers to CN90 for his write up and pointing out where to look. Oil drips out, runs back, then down between the backside of the TB shroud & the engine, until it gets to the little shelf inside the TB shroud. Then it continues to run on down until the very bottom, where it drips out. I can also see where it's been flung onto the inside of the TB cover, where it runs down. Not very much at all. However, everytime I clean it off, it comes back.

Intake, exhaust & crank seals were all replaced about 7 yrs ago (~75,000mi) by indy. I think he used Elring. I can see the intake seal is also wet, but not dripping. So both will be replaced with Corteco from RM-Euro. Problem is RME only stocks Elring for the crank:

Not sure which one I should use. Crank seal is not leaking, but thought I would do it while in there. Also, I don't own any pneumatic tools nor an impact driver, nor a crank puller nor "lock" to hold the pulley still. Haven't read up on the removal prodecure yet either. CN90 already has me on target for the cam seals.

Should I go for the crank seal or leave it alone?

Hope to soon buy a nice air-compressor AND some pneumatic tools to partially compensate me for the 100's of hours I've spent lately.....

Second, WP seal leaking. It has about 75,000mi on it. Hepu. I removed it, scraped off the old seal, used a new Volvo gasket, a bit of red anerobic sealant to hold it into place during installation. Screwed up though as I cleaned all seven bolts with a wire wheel in the drill press, then re-used them with blue loctite instead of RTV. Didn't realize at the time some of the bolt holes emerged to daylight on the lower, left hand side.

Went back in a few days ago removing six of the bolts, one-at-a-time, replacing 4 on the left side with new bolts with RTV and the remaining two with yellow teflon gas tape. Made sure the TB shroud wasn't hung up. Topped off coolant.

Can't tell if this fixed it or not. Today, I found a little water on the floor this morning (could be from A/C use as it's still quite humid here), mixed with large splotches of oil on the floor. Sprayed it all down with degreaser, then rinsed with hot water. Of course, it WASN'T leaking oil when I did the TB + pulleys a few months back.......arrrgh.

Did I screw up by replacing the WP bolts one-at-a-time, with the TB still tensioned? Could it have made it worse? Please advise.

Also, I'm using the white & orange HF jackstands with the cradle top. Indy says I'm safe using these all along the bottom where the pinch wall is. Getting the car HIGHER up sure makes getting under it easier on my back & neck! I usually crank under the front crossbar/sub-frame, lifting the whole front end.

It is OK instead to jack under the rear SF joint, one-side-at-a-time, then slide in the jackstand, the repeat on the other side? I thought it would really torque the front, screw up the alignment, etc., but I might be wrong. The factory jack loop underneath raises both wheels on one side. Just had an alignment done, so I don't want to 'torque' it out-of-spec.

A couple of hockey pucks sure would be great jackstand pads. Too bad there's no ice hockey going on down here!

I am SO ready to be DONE with all of this..............

[erikv11]

Just a couple comments:

Here's a short, recent discussion about replacing the front crank seal: https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... hp?t=77066

I almost always lift the car from the center (that subframe point in the front, or a board under the tow loop on the spare tire well in the back), but what you suggest seems like it should be ok.

[rspi]

I always let sleeping dogs lie. I also made it a rule to use ONLY VOLVO SEALS if the job takes more than 30 minutes.

Viton seals are suppose to be better, especially at the valve stem locations.

Also, messing with engine seals that are suppose to be pressed in have about a 50% failure rate on installation. Ask me how I know. If you don't use a tool at the crank seal location, you are taking a good risk that it will leak. I didn't like that so I had some tools made to install the seals.

Not sure what to say about the water pump leak. If the pump is Volvo and less than 10 years old, I'm surprised it leaks. If the pump is after market and has more than 12 miles on it, it is probably leaking.

[sleddriver]

Update: Around noon, I removed TB cover. Sprayed HD Greased Lightning on all the oil I could see from above. Let it work about 15min. Flushed with 1.5ga. of HOT (!50°F) water, including backside (pass.) of engine where oil had been running down. After about 30 min., I left the TB cover off and ran some errands for a few hours.

When I returned, I looked at the WP area with a flashlight and all is still dry, including that little shelf on the TB shround just to the left of the WP. No sign of oil down below on metal protected from hwy speeds. We'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning.

Notice that though the seals posted above have the same part #, one of their dimensions is different. Odd that.....

Thanks for the links Erik and Robert.

Tools sound like a good idea to ensure integrity and proper depth. I do have a metal lathe and some rod material that I could make something.

Side note: It's rather amazing how much movement the sled motor has when manipulated by hand (when OFF). I can rock it in all directions a bit. For the first time in many, many years, it's "fully suspended" (i.e. no metal touching/resting/saging) and there's fluid in the new hydraulic mounts, fore & aft; THAT really makes a difference. Now if only it would cool off a bit so I could develop some real boost........

Not sure what to say about the water pump leak. If the pump is Volvo and less than 10 years old, I'm surprised it leaks. If the pump is after market and has more than 12 miles on it, it is probably leaking.

The pump itself doesn't leak. I mistook the blue stuff on the bolt threads for loctite instead of RTV. My earilier post explains my mistake. I hope to have finally solved this with the new bolts + tape on the others. I'll be ordering backups along with the seals JIC.

[sleddriver]

Update: I've left the TB cover off the past couple of days and am pleased to report it looks like the WP seal no longer leaks!! No coolant on "the shelf" or pooled at the bottom, nor on the garage floor. I examined it both HOT & COLD. Coolant reservoir level is still where I filled it.

Glad to have (finally) solved that one. Nothing like having to repeat something yet again to burn it into your head.

Soon I'll have both front cam seals replaced and will enjoy no more leaks for the first time, in quite awhile.

BTW, the dreaded re-appearance of P0-455 GROSS Evap leak was attributed to the failure of a less-than-year-old-seal-on-a-OEM-gas-cap. Indy provided me with a free aftermarket seal replacement, I cleared the code and so far, JOY! Discovered a bit of a rough-spot on the metal filler neck, where the seal....seals. Looks like I'll have to touch up this area again.

THANK GOD it was nothing more than that......455 was the albatros about my neck for years. THE definition of a royal PITA!

[paredown]

Update...BTW, the dreaded re-appearance of P0-455 GROSS Evap leak was attributed to the failure of a less-than-year-old-seal-on-a-OEM-gas-cap. Indy provided me with a free aftermarket seal replacement, I cleared the code and so far, JOY! Discovered a bit of a rough-spot on the metal filler neck, where the seal....seals. Looks like I'll have to touch up this area again.

THANK GOD it was nothing more than that......455 was the albatros about my neck for years. THE definition of a royal PITA!

The 455 is part of the joy of these cars. I dealt with the usual suspects, including the gas cap and the plumbing around the roll-over mech, but mine did not go away finally until I got my cracked exhaust welded.

Still scratching my head about that.

From what I have read, make sure that your PCV is good before doing the cam seals, since (as I understand it) sometimes leakage is provoked by excess pressure in the top of the motor.

[sleddriver]

Tools essential for tracking down and exorcising the evil 455 from one's EVAP system include: Magic wand, tall black pointy hat with moon & star logos, a dead chicken, and a black cat....for the CAT scan.

That system doesn't need a mechanic. It needs an exorcist.