Crank shaft seal oil leak - PCV failure?

bigpresh

Evening all,

I've had a oil leak on the driver's side of the Z22SE lump in my Vectra B for a fair while - coating too much, and caused a premature aux belt failure due to the oil all over it.

Got down there with a can of gunk and finally got it cleaned up, then fitted a new belt. Drove it for a bit, checked it out again, and finally saw the culprit:

Looks pretty certain to be the crank seal leaking.

I've read that it can happen due to the PCV valve failing and positive pressure building in the crankcase - does that sound likely?

Anyone have any rough ideas what it'd be likely to cost for a garage to fix? (Taking the engine apart to get to it is beyond the realm of what I'm willing to do myself.)

EDIT: having just read the Haynes manual, it doesn't seem to require much "taking the engine apart", just removing the crank pulley and replacing the oil seal behind it - that sounds easier than I was expecting...

vocky

it's a common seal to leak on the z22se engine, cheap and quite easy to change :thumbup:

bigpresh

vocky said:
it's a common seal to leak on the z22se engine, cheap and quite easy to change :thumbup:

Excellent, cheers - I'm not great at mechanical work but having checked a Haynes manual, it looks like something even I could tackle quite easily and save an hour or two of garage labour charges 🙂

bigpresh

Will I be likely to need a puller of some sort to remove the pulley, or should it come off easily enough once the bolt is out?

cavaddict

Just done this on mine....easy fix.....didn't need a puller on mine....just a wide bladed screw driver to gently ease it off.

bigpresh

cavaddict said:
Just done this on mine....easy fix.....didn't need a puller on mine....just a wide bladed screw driver to gently ease it off.

Great stuff, thanks mate!

jwalker

You might need a breaker bar to undo the bolt!

bigpresh

Did the job today, all sorted. Tried to undo the bolt with a breaker bar, but it really did not want to move. Nipped down to local decent tyre garage, slipped them beer tokens to undo the bolt for me with an air wrench. Third air gun later (the first two couldn't shift it), it finally came undone. Nipped back up just tight enough to hold it for the short drive back home, and all was good.

For anyone else intending to do this job, consider the above a much easier way to handle it 🙂

Probably would have been there all afternoon fighting it otherwise!

bobbyknowlds

just put the breaker bar on bolt with bar touching floor and rock the car using the weight of car to crack the bolt , this is a way if you dont have the use of a zip gun

sandyc

I normally use the old trick of putting the bar on and turning the key to crack it off. Or in the case of this one I screwed bolts into the pulley, locked it with a jack handle and cracked it off.
My woodruff keyway was damaged somehow and I had to remove the pulley with a slidehammer.

vocky

if you use a crank locking tool the crank bolt comes undone much easier :thumbup:

but fitting the crank locking tool requires the starter motor to be removed so not any quicker :lol: