Ford 600 Rear Main seal

Ford600Newbie · Sep 3, 2013

I have a "55 model Ford 600. I had a major leak around the rear of the engine and from other messages it looked like it was the rear seal. Got the oil pan off, they had only used RTV or something similar for the gasket. Took the bearing cap off. Side seals were rope seals, seemed good and dry. It had a neoprene seal and seemed okay, but I put the new one in. Tried to get the top one out and discovered the top half was a rope seal. From a suggest loosened the next main bearing cap to see if the seal would loosen up and realized the bolts on the rear main were not torqued down as much as the center main. So do you think the combination of low rear main torque, mismatched seals and/or poor gasket seal on the pan would have caused the oil leak? Any suggestions on getting the rope seal out? Do I need to remove the barb in the top to install a neoprene seal? Can I do this with the crank in or will I have to take it all the way out? Can anyone help out?

JD Seller · Sep 3, 2013

I have repaired many of them without removing the top half of the seal. Remove the back main bearing cap and loosen the others. Take a piece of hard straight wire. Drive it between the back of the seal and the block. You can usually get it to follow the shape around.(There is actually a tool to do this with. It is a small tube with a steel plunger to drive the wire out of the tube) Cut it off flush when you get it driven around. Then put a new rope seal in the cap. Cut it so the ends stick up just a little bit. Put just a little RTV in the corners of the cap. Tighten the cap lightly. Torque the main bearing to 95-105 ft.lb.

This will usually fix the oil leak. The key is that the old top seal is just worn and loose. If the old top seal is tore up this repair will not work. The wire behind the rope is just tightening the old rope back to the crankshaft.

I have not had very good luck with the lip type replacement seal.

They do make a tool that is to pull in a new rope on the top. It looks like a steel pair of Chinese handcuffs. I never had much luck with them.

Ford600Newbie · Sep 3, 2013

Thanks for the reply. I know that the rear main was not torqued down like it should have been. Do you think it could have been leaking because of that? I tried to pull the upper seal out taking a screw in a short distance, but it is tight, but it also does not seem to have any oil around it, so it may not be leaking up there. Any thoughts?

JD Seller · Sep 3, 2013

You can try just a new bottom rope seal and torque everything to spec. You are not going to be out much other than some labor and maybe a pan gasket.

showcrop · Sep 3, 2013

I would expect that the reason that the lower half of the original seal was replaced was because it was leaking fairly badly. The upper half most likely was leaking just as bad, but replacing the bottom probably cut it pretty much in half. So now most likely the upper half is leaking worse than it was before.

Ford 600 Rear Main seal

Ford600Newbie

New User

JD Seller

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Ford600Newbie

New User

JD Seller

Well-known Member

showcrop

Well-known Member

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