Rear main seal

I have a rear main seal leak indicated to my mechanic by the small amount of oil at the weep hole at the eng/tranny connection point. Anyone know about how long I might be able to milk this out. I know its a pain to change them. I done it once before with a friend on his 97. But its just barely leaking. Just wondering if anyone has seen just how far they can go with one. Keep in mind that I am running my chip on this truck/ If that even makes any difference. Thanks in advance

Make sure that it is the rear main before you dive into it. The 7.3 has a drain hole located in the valley of the engine that drains into the bellhousing. Make sure you hpop lines or stc fittings are not leaking first. Basicly look into the v and make sure there is no oil.

Like he said, Double check everything. The rear mains on the 7.3 rarely go. Check your valley and be sure its not coming from there.My sister in law was told her rear main was gone and when I looked at it,it ended up being the HPOP(a non-serviceable O-ring)So I R&R'd the HPOP.Oh and BTW you chip has nothing to do with it..

Cool. I was wondering if running the chip was going to make it go faster. So where the eng and tranny connect there is kind of a valley/half moon kinda deal. Thats where I am getting a very small amount of oil. Heres the deal. I change my oil on a regular basis. I am very anal about that. But just like any other my oil is black when I drain it. OK. So this oil coming out looks pretty brown. No it isnt red just in case that was the next question. Thats what I am having trouble with though. I was having a hard time comprehending how my oil in the eng was black and 3000 miles later the oil coming from the weep hole is brown. I just changed my oil and when I was draining it was when I discovered the leak. Does that make any sense. 3000 miles on the oil and its coming from the weep hole brown colored? Thanks guys

[QUOTE='Powerstroke7.3]Cool. I was wondering if running the chip was going to make it go faster. So where the eng and tranny connect there is kind of a valley/half moon kinda deal. Thats where I am getting a very small amount of oil. Heres the deal. I change my oil on a regular basis. I am very anal about that. But just like any other my oil is black when I drain it. OK. So this oil coming out looks pretty brown. No it isnt red just in case that was the next question. Thats what I am having trouble with though. I was having a hard time comprehending how my oil in the eng was black and 3000 miles later the oil coming from the weep hole is brown. I just changed my oil and when I was draining it was when I discovered the leak. Does that make any sense. 3000 miles on the oil and its coming from the weep hole brown colored? Thanks guys[/QUOTE]


Could be fuel, oil or anything for that matter on top and the fresh oil is just now pushing out the back. The v is made in such that the oil will puddle in a couple places before it actually fills them up and then flows out the drain hole. The drain is in the inside of the bellhousing, on the upper right hand side.

Your best bet would be to clean up the valley of your engine the best that you can, take your turbo Y-pipe off and really get it cleaned good, then run it for a while and check the valley again, if any oil has collected there then you know that your problem is in the valley, not the rear main. But if it is still leaking and the valley is clean good luck, just remove the tranny and adapter plate and it shouldn't be too bad to change. If it is in the valley though, that would be the easiest to change, take your dust cover off and then your fuel bowl and the hpop is right there. Sometimes those quick connects fail, and if your programming has high oil pressure, you might have stripped the threads in the housing of the pump. (I've blown the fittings out of my stealth pumps 4 times, helicoil was the only thing that fixed that), or maybe it is the gasket between the oil reservoir and the hpop. Those are the only things I can think of to cause oil to drip from your weep hole. Good Luck!

Just take a gallon of soapy water or some cleaner of sorts and pour it in the valley just behind your fuel filter housing. Don't worry you wont hurt anything. Just do it. You'll see what were talking about.

WILL DO. Thanks again for the advice. Ill let ya know how it turns out in a few days or so.

i thought i had the same problem, ended up being that the valve cover bolts had come loose. the back bolts were finger loose. just another thing to check: fyi.

JJeepyjohn said:

HPOP(non-serviceable O-ring)So I R&R'd the HPOP.Oh and BTW you chip has nothing to do with it..

Click to expand...

um... are so.

-Chris

chrisreedtn said:

um... are so.

-Chris

Click to expand...

Are So what? serviceable? Do you know which one Im talking about?Probably NOT. And if you want to get technical, yes the O-rings are servicable but you have to pull the HPOP to get to some of them. The one Im talking about is refered by Ford as NON servicable.If you try and do it on the engine you stand the chance of loosing a check ball and you wont get it back where it belongs without removing the HPOP if your lucky.So instead of messing around with it I just replaced the HPOP with one I already had.