54 Plymouth Brummer Rear Main Seal Saga..

[denmopar]

 First, thanks again for the sage advice offered recently regarding oil pan sealing. The old 218 doesn't leak one drop now.

 

 While re-sealing the oil pump as well, I decided to replace the Brummer seal as a precaution, since the pan was down.

Oh, boy....I ordered a new seal from one of the better- known established Mopar vendors....Attempted to roll up the upper half per manual.

No luck...Tore the bottom of saddle area. Tried a second seal...Made a brass "shoe horn" to ease the seal past the saddle surface on the block...No happiness with that...

Loosened the man caps as far as I dare (timing chain in place.) Still no joy. Planned to pull the crank--then pondered a bit.....

Now, these seals were delivered to me in a plain, unmarked plastic zip-lock bag.....Hmmmmm. I had ordered a standard set of rod inserts as well, just to bring clearances back into preferred specs.....Plain box- marked for "engine rebuilders only." -or something like that....OK- Someone bought out the contents of an independent engine rebuilder. OK.

 

 THEN it occurred to me. I ordered a third seal from another well-known Mopar vendor down South....The NOS genuine Mopar seal arrives.....I see the problem immediately!

The saddle areas of the no-name seals were much thicker! No wonder I couldn't roll it up into the upper area of the block!!

...but.....the NOS seal was of the earliest vintage, per the packaging, and was petrified......Bit of rubber flaking off the impregnated fabric.....I had ordered a seal shown in a much later vintage blue and white package. After issuing my complaint, another-newer-seal was sent..Perfect and supple......Bingo! That was the charm.....Slipped in in less than five minutes.....Finally, I buttoned up the engine and ran it leak-free.

So, I surmise the no-name seals were produced for installing in a block with the crank removed and not intended for slip-in service replacement as the genuine Mopar Brummer OEM seal was....I did advise the vendor. I hope no one else faces this dilemma. Just thought I should post a Heads-Up.

[Dodgeb4ya]

Yep. A lot of worthless NOS crap that suppliers keep on sending out just to see if it will come back because it's no good or made in china and of the wrong dimension! See it a lot at work too.

Bob