Today I finished assembling my newly rebuilt 292 and noticed that the front lip of the front seal is very close to the front of the harmonic damper. I repaired the damper with the correct sleeve and I can no longer verify this, but as memory serves, the repair sleeve overlapped the original wear point by at least 1/8 inch. Now I can see that the front lip of the seal is in front of the repair sleeve and is right up to the small shoulder on the damper (about 1/4 inch back from the major shoulder on the damper). Its on the paint. I am not sure whether the rear lip of the seal is on the repair sleeve but it is probably very closer. Has anyone had experience with this? Several things come to mind. Is it possible that my new timing set is slightly narrower than the original gears? Could the seal area in my new timing cover have been machined slightly deeper? Is my new timing cover slightly thicker that the original? Is my new seal slightly narrower than the original (I have encountered this before with wheel seals)? Is my new gasket set thicker than the original (the original was paper thin as I recall)? Did I leave something out when I installed the damper - I installed the timing set and the oil slinger? Is this something to worry about and should I do anything about this? I could pull the damper, make some careful measurements and determine whether I could knock the seal back a bit ( I was careful to follow the instructions that said to ensure that the seal was set right up to the shoulder in the timing cover). I could fabricate a spacer washer to place between the back end of the damper and the oil slinger. I have not yet installed the fan or powersteering pulleys to see if they line up. I will do that tomorrow, which should confirm whether the damper is in the original location. To make matters more interesting, during assembly I was following Eickman and attempted to torque the damper bolt to 130 - 140 as he recommended. I quit at 130 as the that amount of torque seemed excessive. In any event the damper is well seated on the crank (I backed it off to 85 when I learned that Eickman had erred. Is there anything else that else could contribute this condition? Thank you I await your expert opinions.

I await your expert opinions.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

Wow, thats a lot of maybe,s, a pic might help if possible, just one question i have, did you fit original seal from inside t/cover as normal.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

Here is a picture Bill. Yes I installed the seal from the inside.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

OK, looks nice, i just checked 2 seals i have and the seal lip is between 3/16" to 1/4" back from face of seal, can only assume the sleeve was pushed far enough on for seal to reach, i am fairly certain the timing sets are same width..

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

Well Bill, in the light of a new day, and it is a beautiful day here today (almost Sydney like weather), here is what I have found. I also have two seals to compare and in both cases the rear seal lip is positioned as you have described. However in my case one of the seals (appears to be a Ford original) only has the rear lip. The other like the new one I installed, has a front and rear lip. Also the casing for the single lip seal is about 1/16 less than the double lip style. I installed the water pump pulley and it lines up with the crank pulley, so no issue there. I attached the damper puller and pulled the damper until I could just see the leading edge of the repair sleeve that I installed. This distance is 1/32 or less. Clearly the rear lip of the seal is contacting the repair sleeve, which is good. I may press the seal inwards a 32nd or I just might leave it as it is. I could be wrong, but I am beginning to think that the purpose of the front lip is to keep dust and other debris from contacting the seal area from the outside. If this is the case then I will leave it as it is.
Thank you for your interest is this.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

Lyon, thats good and glad all appears correct, sometimes we 2nd guess ourselves but usually turns out right in 1st place, but good to be sure.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

Quite true Bill, especially when we have access to so much information.

As an aside, I was at JF Launier's car show in Osoyoos B.C. a couple of weeks ago (the guy who built tat 1956 Chrysler wagon; R'Evolution) and took this picture.


Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

if you look on a bearing/seals supply house site they sometimes explain the various seal designs. R21 orR23. R23 is a double lip design the one with the garter spring is the oil seal the other is a dust seal. being in the UK postage and packing is a big concern so seals and bearings are pretty well universal and can be purchased locally by quoting ID,OD depth and style viton or nitrile. just replaced bearing and seals in a steering pump using locally sourced parts

stu

UK

Thanks Stuey, everything seems to be fine now. My new seal came as part of the Best Gasket set, but I have bought seals over the counter for other applications and the seem to be well cross referenced.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

Mark, there seems to be a difference in the length of the repair sleeves. Perhaps you got one of the short ones.

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