Let’s talk Rear Main Seal Leak
Question:
Is there ANY way I can fix a rear main seal leak without replacing the seal? The car is old and not worth the cost for a proper fix. the engine purrs but it leaks oil pretty badly. I even get great fuel economy. It’s a 94 Volvo 850 turbo wagon 2.3. The additives defiantly DO NOT WORK! Can I place a boot or something over it weld something? Any suggestions? I can keep adding oil but I DON’T like to continue to pollute the environment with all my oil!
Answer:
My leak wasn’t nearly as bad as yours and seems to have stopped by switching to heavier viscosity oil (10W40) that also contains seal conditioning additives.
Answer:
Entire engine and tranny must be lowered from below and tranny must be completely removed from vehicle. Requires engine hoist and floor jack. This is the time to also replace your front suspension components since everything down to the rack & pinion assembly must be disassembled to get the tranny out. Not a job for the faint of heart.
Thats a dramatic shot and I see you took the whole motor out. I just lifted the my entire Volvo 850 up on 8×8 wooden blocks staked 2 high as I wasn’t comfortable with jack stands. I followed the procedure outlined in Haynes manual but put a 1×12 8ft shelving board on the frame just under the tranny. When it seperated I was able to just slide it back from the engine and then slid it back in place after I replaced both RMS and transmission Main seal. I used a small scissor jack under the 1×12 board to lift the tranny back up to mate with the engine.
The motor CAN come out from the TOP. I did it myself, no big deal.
Take out the longer drive shaft and bracket for this driveshaft from the motor (2 X 14mm and 1 X 12mm bolts) and accessories such as alternator a/c compressor and power steering.
Remove the exhaust and inlet manifold and also the 4 X exhaust flange bolts (you’re going to remove inlet manifold anyway if you want to do the PCV) Remove the starter, then remove the size 50 torx bolts from the flexplate and the 10mm bolts from the engine speed sensor and as you lift rotate the engine until the cutout in the flexplate matches the engine speed sensor plate.
Then rotate the crank more as the angle changes with the lift.
You may find removing the harmonic balancer will be necessary but if you are serious you’ll be replacing the front crank seal anyway. Just about to pull a ’99 V70 motor the same way and I’ll post some pics. Love the smell of used sump oil on a Sunday morning.
erikv11 »
Engine and trans hooked together, out the top, is the way almost everyone does this. Then it is very easy to separate engine from trans and replace the RMS. Buy the Volvo-branded seal, you don’t want to do this again, but for an 850 I paid $18 for it not $150.
There is a full, illustrated, detailed DIY for pulling an 850 engine-trans out the top, posted in the repair database here.
Options to fix a rear main seal leak
Last Updated on March 23, 2022
