peterng

G'day,

On a recent job, I noticed there was a significant score mark around the crank journal.

So I decided to install my first speedy sleeve. I mic'd the crank journal and it was within the specified limit for the sleeve I had.

Said crank is now leaking a LOT more oil than it was before.

Anyone else have any experience with these things? Should I not bother and just put ni another crank that is in better shape? I've got a couple of other cranks here to work with.

This is the second job of this nature I've done where the crank leaked worse after the job before, one with speedy sleeve and one without.

Anyone else doing anything special?
Thanks,
Pete

Fahrenheit 451

Forget the speedy sleeve. They suck. No matter how hard you try, you are going to wind up with something that isn't round and it will eventually fail.
Step 1: take it off.
Step 2: Go to the dealer or autoparts store and get an oil pump seal with a different profile (how thick/tall the seal is when set flat). I believe they can be purchased with something like a 7mm, 11mm, and 12mm profile. I'm not sure about the numbers offhand, but if you search you can find out. There are various threads on Marlincrawler.com and Pirate4x4.com (search is down though) that provide details and the parts numbers.
I think the best one to use is one for a 1994, assuming you aren't having the problem on a '94-'95.
Using a different profile seal will relocate the sealing point on the pulley so that it won't be riding in the grooves anymore. You can also do the gag I did and take a standard size seal, put some sandpaper on a hard FLAT surface and grind away some of the back of the seal by running the seal back and forth across the sandpaper. I took off about 1/16" on mine. Then, drive the seal completely to the back of the seating surface on the pump.
Some people say to use a shim like old gasket material or a reshaped piston ring to move the sealing point forward, but be careful when doing that. I tried it with what I thought was pretty thin material and it wound up pushing the seal into the back of the bell of the pulley which ate into the seal so it would have failed eventually. Luckily, I had pinched the o-ring and the pump was leaking at the timing cover after a test run and I discovered the error before it turned into something bad then did the correct repair.
This will eliminate the problem versus a speedy sleeve which is basically a patch.
Just an opinion....but I'm right

peterng

dude,

that's a helluva wicked bit of information at this point in time. this particular truck is an 89, not my daily driver though.

So you say if I put a crank seal from a 94 into is the oil pump will receive it and the seal location on the crank journal will be in a different spot? That's great.

1 more thing while I'm thinking of it. I've only taken the crank seal out when I've had the oil pump off, in which case I beat it out from behind, which can still be a bear.

Do you have any particular trick to prying it out from the front?
Thanks again,
Pete

subliminaltrips

whats up peter, tn must be down but i registered here , been comming here for a while but i forgot my old screen name and password. ive had good luck with my sleeve n seal with no leaks.

Fahrenheit 451

I just noticed your location. I spend a couple weeks every summer up at Lake Warren.
I wouldn't even try prying it out without removing the pump myself. Considering the limited working area, I think the likelihood of scoring the surface of the oil pump would be pretty high. Besides, it really isn't that much more work to pull the pump. You would need to buy another o-ring for the pump, but the whole timing cover kit is only something like $11 at Autozone and possibly you could buy the o-ring separately for less. I've never tried.
Also, in order to drive the seal back in you really need some room to work and I can't see you being able to do that very well with the pump still in place.
I found that by turning the pump face down on a thick rag that is wadded up, beating out the old seal is pretty easy. The cushion allowed by the wad of rag(s) both supports the pump and allows the seal to move. I used a big screwdriver with a wide flat tip and beat it out from the back turning it after a couple hits and hitting it in another spot.
Even though a speedy sleeve can and does work, it won't last anywhere near as well as a real seal done right IMO. If you took a mic and checked the speedy sleeve, I bet all of them wind up out of round and rotating ovals and seals don't work well together.