question on water seal direction for camshaft timing cover 170

[JerryIrons]

As part of the 470 owner club, I am in the process of changing out my water seals and putting on speedi sleeves to fix a leaky weephole. According to the manual, "both water pump seal lips face water side". I'm under the impression that this means both seals are installed facing the same direction, and the lips (with spring) face toward the impeller, or the front of the boat.

See below a couple of pictures of the "back" side of the timing cover, the seal lip with spring is clearly facing the timing chain. Did the previous owner have it wrong or am I missing something? The 2nd pic is a close up. The timing cover I pulled out has the seal lip with spring facing away from the timing cover on both sides.

 

[Bt Doctur]

 

[stonyloam]

The PO had it wrong. BOTH seals should face face forward (garter springs facing away from the engine block toward the coolant. FYI the way it is supposed to work is as follows: You have a front and rear seal, with a weep hole in the space between the two. The front seal seals in the pressurized coolant, and if (when) that seal fails the coolant flows into the space between the seals and leaks out of the weep hole. The coolant in the space is now under no pressure and is blocked from dumping into the crankcase by the rear seal. So that is why both seals face away from the block. Make sure the weep hole is clear when you put it back together, sometimes folks will seal the weep hole in a mistaken attempt to stop the leak. Good luck.

 

[Rick Stephens]

nice clear post Stony

 

[JerryIrons]

The PO had it wrong. BOTH seals should face face forward (garter springs facing away from the engine block toward the coolant. FYI the way it is supposed to work is as follows: You have a front and rear seal, with a weep hole in the space between the two. The front seal seals in the pressurized coolant, and if (when) that seal fails the coolant flows into the space between the seals and leaks out of the weep hole. The coolant in the space is now under no pressure and is blocked from dumping into the crankcase by the rear seal. So that is why both seals face away from the block. Make sure the weep hole is clear when you put it back together, sometimes folks will seal the weep hole in a mistaken attempt to stop the leak. Good luck.

Thanks stony I was hoping you were going to reply to this. I have not removed the seals yet but I thought there might be a hole between the two. Great reply.

 

[JerryIrons]

Bt Doctur,

I have that manual as well. Look closely at the picture of the water seal and it looks to me like it's in backwards. (the b is pointing to the back of the water seal, the lip is facing the opposite side) Probably just the way the light etc was when picture taken.

Thanks for your reply and taking the time to get that page out of the manual.

 

[JerryIrons]

So I have a question on these seals that I have installed. According to the manual, right above here bt doctur was nice enough to post the page, it states, "fill the space between the 2 seals with grease".

Why would you do that since there is a weep hole between the two seals? Isn't there the chance that the grease will itself plug up the weep hole? And kind of defeat the purpose of having the weep hole? Mine seemed to be plugged up with gunk, and it seemed like it was old grease.

What I'll probably do is put a little in there, enough to coat the metal and leave the weep hole open. I just can't see filling that whole area up with grease. But I did fill up each seal between the inside out outside edge with grease.

 

[JerryIrons]

So, to follow up on my cam seal project. I got everything installed and running in the driveway, along with an alternator kit from breezeworks. The only leaks I have had so far, were just around the bolts holding the covers in place, and I have been progressively tightening those up little by little, right now just one has a slight leak, one that I haven't tightened yet. I was very paranoid about cracking the timing cover so I'm being cautious about this.

In regards to the oil pan gasket, I too was unable to salvage this thing, and just for anybody doing this project in the future I'll explain why this happens. That gasket is about and inch wide. Take a look and measure your razor blade that you are using to separate this in the beginning of the project, and you will see you have no hope of doing this with just a razor blade. If I were to do this again, I would start it with a razor blade, and then go back and use some type of skinny piece of metal that is longer so you can really separate those things. Even then you are still dealing with a very old cork gasket, so I can't imagine that it will be easy. You do have some room behind the gasket as well, at least in my application.

I ended up using a combination of ultra gray gasket material and a skinny piece of rubber gasket material. I thought the rubber was too thin so I added ultra gray on either side, and let it set for a bit before tightening it up. The pieces of cork material I was able to get a hold of were either too skinny or too fat. So far no leaks.

I would say if you are capable of doing breaks, ball joints, wheel bearings in a car you can handle this. Just take your time and be careful.