Engine Builders:

[mechjames]

Is that too far in for a camshaft seal? Service manual says to tap in the seal so it is flush with the cylinder head. I tapped it in too far with the socket. Is this going to hurt anything? It doesn't seem so, it still should seal the oil inside the motor.

 

[tig1]

Should be fine.

 

[river_rat]

I'm not a pro but looks good to me. I set crankshaft, et al, seals a little deeper than stock sometimes to avoid riding any existing wear groove. Ain't had a leak yet, ever in a doesen times.

 

[JohnBrowning]

Wow that is deep. Assumeing the cam is at it's thrust limit and is not going to hammer away at that seal if it should try to walk it should be fine. If it does fail just make sure you do not drive the replacement on quite that deep.

P.S. I normaly coat the side of my seals with lanolin the same stuff Mom's use on their nipples when breast feeding. Not only do they go on easier but it keeps dirt from getting under the seal surface until it heat cyles a few times and conforms to it's new home.I normaly put some on the lip of the seal as well. Prevents the metal from sticking and putting a micro tear in the lip. In transmissions I use a jar of vasoline on all the rubber's I add some atf to make it red in color so it looks like the stuff you can by for transmission assembly.

 

[StevieC]

From all the ones I have put it, it looks like it will operate just fine to me.

Sleep Easy...

 

[robshelton]

I'd bet it will be fine. As mentioned above, you can sometimes drive a seal in a little further to avoid the wear groove causing a leak. The only thing I'd be concerned about is sometimes there is a oil drain back hole in the same bore as the seal and you wouldn't want to block it. If the seal is not bottomed out you should be ok. Like the guy who recommended using Lanolin (above) you can lube the seal to ease installation. I spray them with silicone lube and put a little grease in the lip to lube the shaft, but of course that's standard.

 

[mechjames]

thanks for all the information. The amount of time I spent on my stratus pulling the head off, i'd prefer not to do it again, because the only way i'd be able to change the cam seal is to pull off the timing cover again, which requires pulling an engine mount, removing the power steering pump and brackets around there, and theres not a [censored] of a lot of room, let alone trying to get the cam sprocket off.

tomorrow i'm going to pull off the cam sensor (on the opposite side) and pull the cam out, and pop out the seal, and reinstall flush with the cylinder head. i'm mainly concerned about oil drainback hole.

 

[StevieC]

It will be fine... No worries bud...

 

[mechtech2]

It may even work better, because now the seal is riding on a new, unused surface.
I hope you oiled it [inside] first!

 

[robshelton]

I hope I haven't sent you down the wrong path - some engines have drain holes behind the seals and some don't.

But if not sure it's smart to take a look now before you have to go thru all that stuff again. Let us know how you make out.