Just installed a TA front timming cover and romac 0243 balancer. After install I got an oil leak. I pulled the balancer and saw my seal was chewed up. I can see where the seal is riding on the balancer. It's not on the snout but the shoulder of the balancer. Is the balancer going too far in on the crank? The end of the snout bottoms to the oil slinger and timming gear correct? The seal was installed almost flush with the cover. But not sticking out far enough to cause this. The balancer to rimming cover clearance is very close. I didn't measure but it's tight. I'll also need to number of the seal used. It was destroyed and has no numbers on it. I found it may be a national seal 450446. Can anyone confirm?
Engine does have the oil slinger in place I assume?? What kind of crank thrust does it have?? Dowels are in place in the block?
Yes to oil slinger. I have not measured thrust. One rimming cover dowl in place. The other is missing. I just installed a TSP 9.5" converter and JW flex plate on the other side.
My romac have always been very very very close to the cover. I normally file some of the cover just to give me some assurance
I would get the other dowel in there. there's fair amount of movement in the cover holes, it needs to be located on the dowels, then measure your thrust
I had the same with my new Ta timing cover when I started up my new engine. I have a Ati balancer. I replaced the seal and installed it abit deeper in the hole. Ok now
The thrust bearing could be worn, I've seen engines with 1/4in of for and aft,..that's extreme case tho
Dowel pins don't cause the situation that's been pictured and described. You could leave them both out, center the timing cover on the damper hub, and be just fine.
Gonna be hard to see thru the balancer to the seal surface would it not,..they are they for that sole purpose in life,..to locate the distributor hole and seal where they need to be. My Money is on too much thrust, I've ran several romac balancers with stock timing covers with no issues, if the TA cover has the seal sitting in a slightly more forward position ,.. can't imagine they would but that would be a cause. Or it the slinger was out it would obviously drop in further than designed As Dan said maybe take some if the seal shell off so it can drop deeper in if it was in fact fully seated
You don't need to "see" the seal. Timing cover is bolted loosely to the block. Damper (hub, or complete, depending on the construction of the damper) is carefully pushed through the timing cover, so as to be seated on the crankshaft. The seal lips provide even pressure on the circumference of the damper sealing surface, which aligns the timing cover. Tighten timing cover bolts (which may require removing the damper after the accessible bolts have been tightened, to get at the bolts "hidden" by the damper or damper hub.) For the record, the 454 in my boat uses an aftermarket marine timing cover that doesn't have dowel holes. This is the only way to get the cover aligned. Depending on the machining accuracy of the block and timing cover, this method is more accurate than the dowel pins--which were crammed in place on high-speed machining lines not famous for accuracy; and the work was done before the block has potentially been align-bored in the aftermarket raising the crankshaft (and therefore the damper) in relation to the dowel pins. The only thing you have going for you is that the seals are designed to have some "give", allowing them to compensate for slight misalignment. All the above is to get appropriate radial alignment. The OP's problem is axial alignment. "I" would be looking very closely at the crank end-play, but also at the height of the aftermarket timing cover's seal "pocket". Wouldn't surprise me to discover that the aftermarket timing cover positions the seal too far forward compared to the OEM seal location. Am I wrong? The original seal was installed from the rear of the cover, the aftermarket timing cover has it pressed-in from the front.
That's how LS engines are done, done it 100 times. But one the Buick cover is much heavier so gravity is going to wanna play a factor in its concentricity, there is also an oil Pump hanging off one side, so unless the engine is sitting up right I wouldn't trust it self centering. Plus as I mentioned what about the distributor, it relies on cover location being correct for the gears to survive. As far as machining clearances being off and the dowels being in the wrong location, unlikely imo, ive disassembled god knows how many Buick V8s and have an ample supply of perfect distributor gears that tell me distributor location was well within tolerance. If Buick felt confident in putting them in there and not having a specific procedure to locating it other than feeling that snap when it seats and moving on,..then so do I jmo But yes the seal in the TA cover is installed from the front, hence why I mentioned it being a potential issue especially since Dan mentioned he had the same issue, maybe TA got the placement slightly off, or maybe az Dan stated he just didn't have it driven in far enough,..Mike is as Slick as they come can't imagine Him missing a detail like that with so many of them covers in use
Fine. Tip the block on-end, timing cover "up". Cover weight no longer matters. Otherwise compensate for the weight by supporting cover from below Install the damper/hub and the distributor before snugging some bolts. At any rate, it's the axial positioning that makes the most difference for the OP.
Thank you for the replies. I replaced the seal with a new one. I wish TA would chamfer the very outer edge of the cover. seal installation is very difficult With such a sharp edge and tight seal. I installed the seal deeper. But it's still leaking oil. I ran out of time to inspect over the weekend. Today I will pull the balancer and see if the seal is chewed up again. If not then possibly the cover is not located properly or I have oil coming from someplace else somehow?????? Don't ask why but I found a broken tap in the driver's side dowl location. The tap sticks out slightly and does actually locate the cover. Kind of (lol) If needed I feel confident that I could locate the cover by installing the balancer and feel where the cover should go. This would be a more last resort to possibly fixing my issue. I'm also going to install my stock balancer back on and see what happens. I'm dealing with 2 new parts. The factory balancer will help point out the issue. After all that I'd feel I have done my due diligence and a call to TA would be my next step.
There is not a ton of contact with the front seal to the balancer hub. So if the timing cover is off just a little bit in alignment, you could have a gap that will leak right off the bat, or could wear the seal a little bit and have a leak down the line. I had an issue like this come up on a customer's motor here last year, old factory cover with seal conversion, new seal, but whoever did the initial seal conversion in factory cover, did not have the hole opened up dead nuts in the center.. so it was fine here on the dyno, but started leaking nearly right away after they put it in the car. Here is my suggestion, if you cannot positively locate the timing cover via the dowels. Loosen the cover up, including any gasket sealer adhesion, replace the gasket if you have to.. the idea is that the cover, with bolts installed just shy of "snug" will move when you install the balancer on the hub.. the idea is to get it to 'self center'.. As soon as the balancer hub goes thru the seal a bit, then you can tighten the timing cover bolts.. don't wait, there is one bolt you can't access once it's fully on, and once the hub goes thru the seal a bit, you will have established "center" on the seal. Watch that bolt near the oil pump, and use that to judge when you should stop and tighten the bolts. Inspect your new seal very carefully for tears or roughness in the sealing lip. You MUST be using a balancer installation tool to install this press fit balancer. If you don't have one, buy one.. This is the one I have.. the thread on the crank is 3/4-16 https://www.summitracing.com/parts/...0IHFPIpu7voR6AtcYwdsLtsC3SPWzt9hoCqpoQAvD_BwE JW
Thanks Jim. I think I'll locate the cover via the balancer if the leak does not stop. Luckily I can install the balancer about half way on the crank by hand as long as the crank is cold. I pull it on the rest of the way with very little effort via the center bolt.
