Have suspected a rear main seal leak for some time. Had oil covering tranny case (although bad diff. bearings also to blame) and high oil consumption. Well, I dropped the tranny to do a tranny swap and found that the rear main seal was definitely leaking. There was no clutch slippage and the clutch disc did not have evidence of contamination--I think the flywheel shielded it some. I am posting pics as my civic duty to the Org and I know a few people are in the same boat as me with this install:

Flywheel removed (note oily residue all over):


Step one: Drain engine oil. Clean area (I used brake cleaner) and remove old seal--it is more of a bracket with integrated inner rubber seal. This includes any old stuck-on gasket sealant attached to the metal surfaces. It should look like this after:


Step two: With new OEM rear main bearing seal in hand (THANKS, JRNISSAN!), coat the appropriate edges with permatex high-temp gasket sealant -- the edges will have a channel to hold in the sealant. Coat the inner rubber seal with a light coat of motor oil.


Step three: Very carefully insert seal. Make sure you do not deform (ie. force it) the rubber inner seal or you will tear it (the damned seal ain't cheap!) or the metal inner retaining spring will pop out. You want to gently nudge it over the crank so the seal sits flush. Make sure you allow sufficient time for the Permatex to cure.
The end result should look like this:

 

Thanks for posting. Those are great pics.


Dave

 

Nice pics...

The seal is already greased from the factory though, well mine was...

Good work!

 

I also suspect I have this problem and have been losing about 1 qt. of oil about every 1000 miles or so....It's getting expensive and I am planning on doing a tranny swap soon, any advice on doing the seal?

 

Yeah, was losing about a qt every 1000 miles and then started using Barr's Leak stop to temporize the situation until winter was over. Still lost about a qt and a half every 4-5k miles. It's not hard...just stay organized...especially all the bolts you need to remove. If I don't get the tranny back on soon, I may just forget what bolt goes where!

As for advice, to be honest, the tranny drop has been relatively painless. I also put in new control arms. Hardest part so far (still awaiting new clutch) was removing passenger side axle and removing a rusted out control arm.

 

Mine has a small leak. It doesn't leave any oil on the ground, but if I park on a steep incline facing down then some will drip. I've looked under the car and you can see the dark spot where it's coming from.

All the shops I took it too said the cost / labor ($650-$850) just wasn't worth it.

They also turned white as a sheet when they saw all the labor involved.

 

Yeah a shop turned down my moms 1995 Volvo 850 GLT to get a rear oil seal redone. They said the labor alone wouldve been 580 bucks. She took it to the dealer ot have it fixed. Then about 4 weeks later she got a new car.