Replaced my front crank seal today. As some of you may know, getting the harmonic balancer bolt loose can be a challenge. So, l'm going to let you in on a little helpful hint.

1) Remove upper shroud, cooling fan and belt.
2) Remove rubber plug from bell-housing (that allows access to flex plate bolts).
3) While looking through the access hole, turn crank slowly, by harmonic balancer bolt, until you see one of the round openings in the flywheel and a flex plate bolt head.
4) Grab a 1/2 inch 3/4 deep well socket and extension(s), slide the socket through the access hole and into the round area of the flywheel, then turn crank slowly until the socket hits the edge of the access hole.
5) Now that the flywheel is locked/wedged in place, use a breaker bar and 24mm socket to loosen the harmonic balancer bolt. It's pretty tight, so an extension (pipe) may be in order. I used a three foot breaker bar and it made mice meat out of the job.
6) Once bolt is removed, pull harmonic balancer off, should slide freely and come right off.
7) Now the seal is exposed, take a small screwdriver (flat blade...or minus as the Japanese refer to them) and pry old seal out of front cover. Being careful not to gouge any of the mating surface or crank shaft.
7a) Clean area around seal opening and mating surface, and use some crocus cloth to clean mating surface of harmonic balancer.
8) Install new seal by lightly tapping the outer edge until it goes in flush with housing edge, applying a little coat of lubricant to the seal inner edge prior to installation (edge that rides on crank shaft). Made a seal installer tool, out of a piece of 2 1/2 inch exhaust pipe, about two inches long...worked great for keeping seal straight.
9) Reinstall the harmonic balancer, TAKING GREAT CARE TO ALIGN KEY WAY. The key is somewhat hidden from view, inside the front cover...so be sure to spin the balancer until its inner groove aligns with the key way. It should slid in without much force or pressure. If you find any resistance...STOP...and find out why...because...again, it should slid right in.
10) Torque balancer bolt to spec (no idea what that is, l just used my 40 years of being a mechanic inner mojo torque spec...lol).
11) REMOVE SOCKET THAT IS WEDGED IN BELL- HOUSING HOLE and reinstall rubber plug (good luck with that, usually they are oil soaked and enlarged to the point they won't go back in).
12) Reinstall belt, fan and shroud.
13) Start engine and check for leaks.
14) Road test and recheck for leaks.
15) Degreaser everything and hope like heck that this was the only leak.

Whole job took about an hour.

​​​​​​​ Brian.

 

that's a great idea to lock the rotation using those inspection ports. i believe you can get new replacement bungs if the old ones won't go back.

 

Nice!

 

Might help explain the process a little better with pictures. These are of the bell-house access hole and socket/extension that get slid in to lock flywheel rotation, for removing harmonic balancer bolt.





First two pictures are of access hole, one with poor lighting and the other way super bright lighting. Third picture is with socket/extension in place, through access hole and flywheel, locking rotation.

​​​​​​​ Brian.

 

Yes, l bought some for the 01 (when l installed transmission). But, thank you...and others may want to know this.

​​​​​​​ Brian.

 

Also, the socket size is larger than the flex-plate bolt head. It is not intended to fit on the bolt head, just within the flywheel opening. So, in essence...the flywheel is taking the rotational force of crank.

Also...I HATE THIS DARN AUTO CORRECT...what good is an auto correct that you have to manually correct afterwards. I use the hen-peck method for typing, so l'm constantly looking at the keyboard...l look up to see what l've typed...and l'm like...WTF is this? Hell, sometimes l can't even make heads or tails out of the sentence...and l just typed it.

Rant over (for now)

​​​​​​​ Brian.

 

Just went into settings and turned off auto correct feature...take that ya stink'n bastar*s...that will teach them to mess with me!

 

Forgot, this is my wife's tablet...so when she gets home from vacation...she's probably going to punch me in the face for disabling the feature...lol. l'll plead the fifth though, if she ask...before she punches me.

 

part number for the inspection grommets is ERR7229

 

Crank bolt torque spec is
200 ft lbs