Front crankshaft oilseal sqeak.......
 

Hi all,
I have a brain teaser and have decided to ask you Amazon die hards. I owned Amazons many years ago and done the obligatory fibre gear change etc and general maintenance but coming up to the present day this one has me wondering.
So......I've rebuilt my B18 engine on my latest aquisition and changed the oil seals to neoprene and done all the usual oil pump,shells,rings,bore glaze busting in fact you name I've done it to this engine that has not run for 27 years till I did the business.
So...... now last week I primed the oil galleries, got oil in the rocker shaft,left the valve adjustment on the loose side for now,set the timing and fired her up immediately.
She ran well and I kept the revs up around a 1000 plus for a few minutes then a sqeak developed,disconnected the water pump and dynamo belt...still had the squeak.
Put some oil behind the crank pulley and .....eureka no squeak. So connected w/pump etc and ran it for around 20 mins at around 1500 - 2000 revs to bed in the rings etc and all was fine. BUT trailered it to a show the weekend and moved it a couple of times this week on the workshop yard with intentions of now giving it a running in period and the sqeak is back...so....is it the neoprene seal not getting fed with oil or may be I'm worrying too much or perhaps it's partial front strip out to check my assembly, anyone any ideas it would be much appreciated cos' it's not one I've come across before.

On assembly, did you lubricate the seal with rubber grease?

Salut!
Pookie

Errm no.................!!....and the rebuild was done last year so sounds rather like I have to pop off the pulley.
Is silicon grease a good option too?

Most engine workshop manuals say engine oil - what's the recommendation in the Volvo manual?

I don't want to cause a panic but removal of the seal and checking the running surfaces of the crank and the seal seems to me to be a good way to start with this problem - pressure loss from a leaking crankshaft seal can cause a fair amount of wear (which would be a shame)

Thanks for the comments gents, I'm sure I used a little engine oil on the crank on reassembly, it's normally rule of thumb to smear these type of parts on assembly.
I've got a suspicion that maybe it's the oil jet spray on the timing gear as it was overlooked when I injected fluids with my airline into the galleries before reassembly.........just to recap the engine runs very sweet and having run it for 20 mins @ 2000 revs with no issues including normal temperature range then I feel nothing serious is iminent accept oilseal failure from timing cover.
I think removal of front pulley may give an indication of oil presence in the frontal area would you gents agree?

Squeak = friction

Always best to go and look

Good luck!

So everyone.........the cause is revealed, it's not the Oilseal it's the housing that is a refurbished item that one has as an exchange unit and because it's not personal to the engine from new it is obviously slightly out of line on fitment and the crank boss was rubbing on the bottom of the housing, the "rub ring" can be seen to the extreme right on the boss, this butts up to the crankgear.
Hope this has been useful if not entertaining...............time to clean up the boss and fettle the case.

I can't quite place this part - I'll have to have a look at my engine so I can settle it right in my head (!)

Does a / the seal rub up against this spacer?

Pic shown is the sleeve that goes on the end of the crank. The oil seal runs on this so should be as smooth as possible. Lip seals can rub a ring into the sleeve but if it's not in the middle it can be reversed so it presents a new surface to the seal.
New ones available if really bad but they are £60.

Hi Army,

if you look down at your Crankshaft bolt and were to remove it along with the bottom pulley, you would see this "boss" which is keyed onto and slips over the end of the crankshaft and prodrudes out of the timing case initiating the seal of the timing case oil seal.
In the event of wear over the years the boss can be removed and replaced with little effort (much like many of the Volvo components in their day).
In my situation the boss was rubbing on the inner cast housing metal to metal which is at the rear of the oil seal housing.
When these engines originally used felt seals the manual stated that before tightening the timing cover ensure there is an even gap around the boss.
Of course nowadays if the timing cover is supplied with a neoprene seal in situ' this is not possible so hence my problem arose.
If I have to attend to this again I shall remove the oil seal centre the timing cover and then install the new seal............hope this helps.
Thanks Derek you got there before me