Oil Seal popping out -- FE350

wearehooked

I'm hoping ya'll can help me with an oil seal problem. SIL has a 2000 Villager with blown FE350 engine. I tore it down and did a rebuild on it and it runs fine now. EXCEPT for the oil seal on the flywheel side of the crankcase. Each time I take for a test drive it blows out the seal. Revving it in neutral doesn't present a problem but under load/running it blows the seal.
First time it happened I simply reinstalled thinking I may not have installed it completely/securely. After second failure I picked up a new seal. Same thing happened again.

Any suggestions on what might be causing this seal to pop out of the housing like this? Never experienced this on any engine I've rebuilt in the past.

Could there possibly be a build up of pressure inside the crankcase and this seal is the weakest point to release the pressure? I'm at a loss at this point.

Thanks for any advice/suggestions.

Bob


edit: To correct comments

BGW

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wearehooked

Reading through the service manual I found the breather/reed valve on the head under the valve cover. I confirmed I have air flow out the vent tube with the engine running. This kinda eliminates the question of pressure buildup in the crankcase causing the seal to blow out.
Still searching for the problem and solution.

Volt_Ampere

Maybe the seal is too loose a fit.

villebacker

Just curious if it is an OEM or aftermarket seal? It may be smaller than OEM size. Does it go in easier than the past? Maybe someone has ran into this before and will chime in.

holeysocks

might try green or blue locktite

wearehooked

Well folks, I jumped the gun with my question. After pulling the motor and removing the flywheel, much to my surprise the oil seal was intact. What a relief to see that since this was the third time I'd pull the engine due to the oil leak.

This round the leak was not as much volume as the two previous times so looking elsewhere it appeared to be coming from the oil pump cover. After removing the cover I decided to pick up a new gasket. When I saw the new gasket(metal) it was pretty obvious this was the culprit as there was a marked difference between the two. The ridge around the perimeter of the old one was flattened completely around the bolt holes and extended some on each side of the hole. This was the only gasket/seal which was not included in the gasket kit we purchased for the rebuild. Live and learn.

To answer the above questions. OEM or aftermarket seal -- the first seal was aftermarket so your suspicion is probably accurate regarding there being a small size difference. Second one is OEM.
I also put blue locktite on the second/OEM seal 'just in case'.

I'll follow-up later today with the results once I get the engine reinstalled and take it for a test drive.

wearehooked

Oil leaks are fixed.
The new (OEM) oil seal along with blue locktite corrected the seal blowing out.

New oil pump gasket corrected that leak.

holeysocks

villebacker

I asked the question about the seal being OEM was from my experience. I did not have the seal come out as you did but the new aftermarket seal allowed considerable leakage. I went back with OEM seal recently when I pulled the engine to put in new rings and now I don't have any leaking around the seal. Often times it pays to go back OEM.

wearehooked

Continuing on this topic.

I was discussing this problem with a friend the other day. He told me another thing to look for/consider when replacing the oil seals is any grooving of the crankshaft. Sometimes, if an engine is run with a dry seal it can score the crank and the new seal will not seat correctly. One solution to this potential problem is to place a thin shim behind the seal. This will move the seal just enough to ride on the undamaged crank.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I've learned a lot from the folks here just by reading through historical threads regarding questions I've had over the past year.