When you guys put in a new rear main seal, did you notice that the seal wasn't all the way in? Mine stopped about a 1/4" from where the "ledge" was. If you look at my picture below, you can see 3 lines of crud, the middle line (red arrow) is where the seal stopped at, then the shine of the housing, and then the 3rd line of crud or I call "ledge" of where I thought the seal would be flush with. The front of the seal was flush with the housing, but again, the rear of the seal stopped at that middle crud line.



I did have my tranny worked on about 5 years ago. The seal in there doesn't look oem, as the one on the right is toyota oem. I'm thinking the mechanic changed the seal for me, used an aftermarket, and didn't sit it all the way in? I have had a leak there ever since that kept getting worse over the years.

Front of Old and New seals



Back


Since I have the engine out I'm obviously replacing it along with the tranny input seal.

 

That may be part of the old seal. Can you feel a ridge?

 

http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b...ine/9cylin.pdf

 

Thanks...guess I should've looked at the manual first

 

Flush mounting is generally called for when installing radial lips seals of the sort(lots of them on any given vehicle). Kind of a rule of thumb: when in doubt, tap it in until it's flush with the housing and you'll be good to go, 99 times out of 100. Sometimes close enough to flush works just fine too. Rarely is there a specific depth required(other than flush to the housing).