Replacing Oil pan Gasket and Rear Main Seal [BMW E30]
Addendum to yesterday's post
For some reason, steepshop didnt upload some of the photos I took, so here they are!
Last post, I removed the oil pan and the rear main seal cover plate to clean the mating surfaces and replace the seals. Because I'm only able to work on the car after work at night, I had to seal off my crank so sand and dust does not contaminate the bearing journals and destroy my crank. It's an interesting use of food wrap!
use of plastic wrap to protect crank
replacing the rear main seal
In the above photo, the thin black gasket is the new seal, which is made of a thin metal sheet that can be compressed to create a tight joint between the engine block and the seal cover. The grey goo around it is a gasket sealer to hold the gasket in place and create an ever better seal.
Rear Main Seal Cover Plate
In the above photo, you'll notice shiny aluminum surfaces thats ready for a new seal to be mated to it. The brown bushing is also getting replaced with a new bushing. It's an item that's worth doing now because replacing it later would require you to remove the transmission...again!
a buttoned up rear main seal
The white plastic is just a tool used to install the rear main seal. notice that the plastic wrap is still on because the oil pan is next!
cleaned engine block for the oil pan
cleaned oil pan sealing surface
The oil pan is a tricker installation because the power steering rack and the subframe is in the way of installing the pan directly onto the engine block. If you notice the black bar that runs along the bottom of the photo, you'll notice immediately that installing the pan requires you to carefully maneuver around it. Because of this, I decided that it was best to fit the oil pan and then apply the gasket maker so I don't destroy the gasket.
oil pan up against the engine block
With the oil pan installed, applying the gasket maker is much more difficult, but you can't mess up the gasket! Pick your poison!
my back yard garage setup
Thanks for reading guys! If you like this stuff lets get a chain of gearheads at the end of our post so we can create a community.
Here's a list of auto enthusiasts that I know of here!