Help! I'm at my wit's nd and tiired of being an oily Ole.

OK, I've got 44 hand start A. Oil has been leaking out on the flywheel and slinging it over myself and the tractor and in a hour or so everything is an oily mess. I ordered both the rubber seal and the cork one. Parts book shows the same spacer for either seal but the rubber one was thinner with a smaller outside diameter so it fit pretty loosely in the spacer. I used the cork seal and let it soak in oil for half an hour and then put it on. After the engine was running for about 5 minutes oil started flying off the flywheel again. I pulled it off and all looked good, the inside showed some signs of the spines on the crank from when it slid over them but no depressions or cracks. The crank itself has some slight discoloration where the seal goes but is smooth. Thinking I may gotten the endplay too close and that may have an effect and not having ready access to another seal, I put a light film of silicone on the crank where the seal goes and put it back together with about 5/1000 of endplay. Same result, five minutes of run time, oil all over. So I ordered 2 more cork seals because they take 4 to 5 days and put one in when I got them. Again, same result.

I'm thinking either there is something wrong in my procedure or something else is amiss. The key slot on the spacer is wallered out a bit on the outside for about an eighth of an inch but them is good. Could this possibly have worn on the bearing cover and made the hole for the spacer too large and allow oil to leak out? The drain hole to the crank seems clear and I checked the crankcase breather to see if it was blocked and that seems clear, so I don't think it is a problem with the crankcase building pressure.

Other than that the tractor is running great and and I just got a 10' JD mechanical lift cultivator to play with, so I would like to not be an oily Ole while doing that. Any information on what I might be doing wrong or missing would be greatly appreciated.

Are you talking about the seal on the ID of the flywheel spacer? Oil should work out between the spacer and the main bearing and collect in the small cover to drain back to the crank case. Is the drain hole plugged?

You also have to center the outer cover around the slinger so it does not rub. If it rubs it can't work right. Use feeler gauges as you tighten it up.

Use water and not oil to soak it in for a 24 hour day before attempting to install. You'll have to weight it down of course. Once entirely wet it will stretch instead of break apart after the fact. Further as it dries it will yield to the exact size needed and NEVER snap apart. I used silicone on the inner diameter on the crankshaft to seal the cork to the crank and more for the slinger to cork contact area. The slinger will shed all oil but if oil can seep under the slinger or your cork is a broken circle you will have a leak. Only water lets cork stretch to the size needed so never oil on cork gaskets as it tends to ruin it for water soak which when already loaded with oil doesn't work out so good.

.005 end play sounds perfect to me. Chase the drain hole with some wire to ensure it's open. These can't build crankcase pressure as there is a huge hole that the clutch drum goes thru. As long as the slinger is being driven by the flywheel you should be fine there. I don't believe the hole size the slinger fits thru has a single thing to do with how well it can sling oil. My 44 is electric start, no petcocks.

Just because I just did this very same thing with my hand stat "A" - You might want to chack to see if you have a little stud sticking out of the flywheel anymore! If that stud is not meshing with the slinger then the internal oil pressure will just pump oil past that seal when it is running! The slinger has to rotate inside of that housing that is mounted to the tractor and the little stud on the inside of the flywheel is what makes it all work!

Thanks for the input guys!

Mike: Yep that is the one and the drain hole appears to be open.

Mike M: The slinger is free from the outer cover as I can move it to align it with the dowel pin.

Marv2015: Yep, the dowel pin is there as I just put in a new one when I saw that the slinger was a little damaged on the end of the key way and I wanted to make sure it was engaging. Getting the old one out was interesting until i drilled and tapped it for 5/32 and then threaded in a piece of all thread, slid a 3/8 bushing over the rod and the square head of the pin, dropped a 1/4 flat washer on top of the bushing followed by a 5/32 washer and nut. Couple of turns on the nut and it came right out.

Lee B: I saw you or someone post about using water in another thread and that was one reason I ordered the 2nd seal as a backup. I didn't have a lot of hope that it would be the breather but it was easy to check and I would have felt stupid for not checking it if that turned out to be the issue.

Going through these, I'm starting to wonder about the drain and maybe that is the issue where the engine runs for a while and builds oil in the cover until comes out between the slinger and the cover. What I assume is the drain is a hole about the size of a dime and I can see the cam gears through it but that seems a little big to be chasing with a wire. Is the drain somewhere else? If so where?

Seeing the cam gear thru the drain hole pretty much verifies that it is open and not the issue. More relevant is what is the condition of the removed seals when you've gone back in for leaking? If they are in pieces you have found the reason for the leak. I believe it was me with the water tip before - it's old school and not taught today. Water for cork gaskets because they used to always shrink in the package on the shelf and would not fit properly any other way than to soak them in water first. Oil won't work for this. Cork is an organic product, it's tree bark pure and simple. When they cut it to size, it was a bit wetter then and it does shrink on drying, it's such a thick bit of cork I sincerely believe that 24 hours under water would be needed to get it wet all the way thru.

I pulled it off again last night and yeah, the drain is not the issue. The seal looks fine, no cracks or anything. It is kind of frustrating because it is a pretty straightforward repair. So I'm going to soak my other one in water and what happens. Thanks.

Well that's telling too then. It's leaking over the top and back down the outside of the seal. At the time I did mine and I was done with the RTV fun and wiping my fingers of that stuff I had a thought of why use a seal here of any sort? RTV alone could have done this job if one put a full thick rope around the crank about 1/2 inch outboard from where the slinger lives. The crank to slinger is well sealed in this manner and there is no 'around the outside surface' of the seal to worry about. Wet, the cork does not want to marry with the RTV very well was my take away. But in my case I had put enough RTV to task and it didn't leak over the top of the seal and around the outside edge. The seal needs to be wider so that it is compressed by the slinger against the spacer such that oil can't find it's way over the top of the seal and back down on the outboard side of the seal. This might cause difficulties in setting end play though if the seal is too wide - so again I'm thinking why use a seal here at all, it's perfect for the very rare only RTV use that should work perfect every time provided the rope bead gets pushed onto the crank further by the installation of the slinger. This action causes the RTV rope to pile up against the inside of the slinger, and the missing seal that doesn't want to stick to RTV when it's wet with either oil or water can't even cause a problem. Slinger and crank need to be clean and oil free, but it should work. It would need several days of curing before use too. And the drive slot for the slinger needs to be in the right place before the RTV sets up.