14) The great thing about the 3.8L & 4.2L engines is that you can replace the rear main seal without removing the crank.
The first thing that gets installed is the upper half of the rear main seal. A bracket is attached to the rear oft he block
using socket head screws. |
15) The seal itself is made from asbestos. Just breath in the mesothelioma!
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16) It is just packed in a groove with the ends sticking out a little. The service manual says to install the other half, and insert a special
tool to get it to seat properly. I used a deepwell socket rocked across the seal to get it to seat and then used the crank by only tightening down the rear main
bearing cap and spinning it.
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17) Here it is with the main bearings inserted into the block. Some people like to coatthe inside of the block with glyptol to seal the pores in the block and
get the oil flowing better, but the original factory primer looked pretty good to me.
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18) The cranks is shown here set it place. The crank and bearings were coated with motor oil.
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19) The crank endplay is set using special U-shaped shims that are on either side of the center main bearing cap. There are only a couple of sizes to choose from
but you they both do not need to be the same. In my case I only needed to use the standard size.
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20) Here is the bottom half of the rear main seal, packed and ready to install.
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21) The crank was turned as the bottom half of the rear main seal was tightened to ensure that the seal was properly set. No need for special jigs.
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22) Here is a shot showing the socket head screws that are used to install the bottom half of the rear main seal.
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23) Here is the crank after the main bearing caps have been torqued and the locking tabs have been bent over.
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24) I had the connecting rods balanced. This is accomplished using a scale and grinding away material so that each connecting
rod ways the same.
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25) Piston installation is quite simple. I use a ring compressor that is rachetted so that I can align the piston properlly from below. Then I just
tap the piston down from above.
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26) I put pieces of hose on the connecting rod bolts to keep them from damaging the crank.
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27) In this picture you can see that the Mahle pistons have the bore size and clearance stamped on them.
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