MTFCA Forum

Hi all! I got a modern camshaft seal that appears to fit nicely in my cover. I got a nicely made timing cover indexing tool from Gene French, (thanks, Gene!!) And I am ready to go. Almost. The modern crankshaft seal from what I have read goes on backwards: i.e
With the open side of the seal facing the front of the engine and the closed side with open pedals effectively glued to the block with ultra black. Is this same positioning used for the camshaft seal? That is, is the open side facing the timer ... And the closed side again glued to the cover?

I have just recently done this and hope these pictures help. I also got the centering tool from Gene, perfect. The first picture is the seal side that faces the Cam or "inboard" the second pictures is how it should look installed, Kinda like the front wheel bearing seal.

The front crankshaft seal I used was that white rope style, Mike Vaughn had a great technical Q&A section on that in the Vintage Ford a while back. Very helpful also.

NU2....
PERfect! Thanks! I have another short thread on replacing the felt SE al for the crankshaft, but after reading, I also got the white rope. The last couple pictures shows it installed with a timing cover loosely installed, as I hadn't received Gene's indexing tool, yet.

For the crankshaft, I am going to install both the model A rope seal material, and the modern 'pedal' seal. at first glance, it looks like the crankshaft modern seal maybe too proud to give enough clearance to the crank pulley. But, with a little bit of grinding that shouldn't be a problem. I posted over there, also, that would it hurt anything if all the pedals were glued up against the block. That would reduce almost half the thickness of the seal. I don't know if the non-pedal pieces give the seal a little more rigidity, or not.

Thanks again for your 'timely' response.

Well, it's kind of weird, I did have to to squeeze the seal a bit all the way around to get it to somewhat stay in, but when I put it in with the front facing front it wanted to ooze out. And I didn't have that much our TV behind it, so I thought it was just the rubber seal itself hitting on something or some strange thing. I took it out cleaned it up and rtved it and put it in backwards and it stays without a problem. So I don't know if it will leak in that position or if it works fine, as well. If it's if it can't work that way, I guess I'll need to pull it out!

Dennis the seal lip is designed such that the open side goes to the fluid that is to be stopped. So in the camshaft application, the open side goes into the housing to hold the oil in the motor. Most T timing covers are a tad too big for the modern seal to be a press fit. Some distort the outer diameter to make it tighter. I prefer to fit it with a thin strip of brass shim stock and Loctite. Either way, it can be difficult to get the lip of the seal started on the shoulder of the camshaft nut. If it snags, it may hold up and invert in its carrier. That may be why your wants to pop out. It helps sometimes if you can crank the motor over so the shaft is rotating in the seal.

Hope this helps.
Allan from down under.