Oil Leak SOLVED: Replaced Front Seal and Crank Pulley
 

2004 TSX, MT. 260,000miles. :thumbsup:

I'm posting because I searched for procedure to fix the slow oil leak at the front (passenger side) of engine, and I did not find any web description of how to replace the front (main) crank seal without following the Acura shop manual. The manual says to remove the timing chain cover. The cover then needs to be re-sealed with Acura sealant to the block and to the oil pan. This might not be too hard with the engine out of the car, it but in the car . . . . it would be a lot of work, and a great opportunity to create a new leak.

So here's what I did: 1) I blocked the rear wheels, jacked the front up & put on jack stands, and then I removed the front splash shield under the radiator & oil pan and over the crank pulley (AKA harmonic balancer). Then I removed the serpentine belt. 2) I loosened the crank pulley bolt (I have the Honda 'internal hex' crank pulley tool), but no matter how you keep the pully from moving, the bolt is always a beast to remove. 3) After removing the pulley/harmonic balancer I used the angled jaw of a 12mm open end wrench to gently work under the lip of the seal on one side and then the other until I popped the seal out of the timing chain cover. The seal was definitely hardened and it had polished a nice little groove into the sealing surface of the crank pulley - I ordered a new pulley and a new belt. 4) With new seal in hand, I used a hardened spacer disk from a wheel bearing toolkit, fed the crank bolt through that, and used that plus the old seal turned backwards to gently press the new seal into the timing chain cover. I had measured the depth of the old seal carefully so that I could get that right. Tightening the crank bolt made a nice press. 5) The new seal comes with a pre-lube on the inner surface, so I just put the crank key back in place and slid the new pulley onto the crank - then torqued the crank bolt and buttoned it all back up.

I am not a pro mechanic, and I make no garantees that this will work for everyone, but it gave me a sense of satisfaction to do this and leave the timing cover in place. It's great not to have the oil drop onto the chassis, and now I'm back to using almost no oil between changes (3500 to 5000 mi using Mobil 1, Honda S2000 filters).

Saint Croix Guy

Nice procedure. I hope I never need, but I saved a copy, JIC.

regards

Your car has 260,000 miles?!

Thanks, I think I have the same problem. Do you have the part number of the seal

I am also noticing a small leak on the passenger side (bottom front) at first I thought it was a bad oil filter.. but now i'm thinking it's a bad seal somewhere.. possibly similar to this issue... how fast was your oil leaking prior to the fix?

Is there a picture of the spot leaking?

I have the same problem at 135k. It doesn't leak bad, only little drops in the garage. Anybody knows how much can it cost? My mechanic quoted me around 150 bucks and was offering to replace water pump as well for another 100...