4 star rear crankshaft seal/felt

I have the engine disassembled and when looking at the parts of my gasket kit, they gave me a lip seal but I need the felt one. My dealer has since closed and haven't called Welters yet, but can I guy use a speedisleeve and then use a lip seal instead of the felt. Had my local bearing/seal store try and cross the lip seal to another seal and sleeve, but the seal uses a Victor gasket number instead of a CR or National. So no luck. I'm just curious about this and have no problem using the felt. Do you get just the felt and install it in the retainer or do you get a new assembly. If I remember right the parts guy asked me which one I needed but didn't know at the time. I did trim one of the dowels like JK2 suggested to remove the rear main housing, but still took the right spot to get it off of the crank. thanks chris

matthies,
You can generally use either the lip seal or the felt seal, with either the smooth or spiral cut crank edge. I prefer the lip seal as it does a much job of keeping the oil in. Most fellows do prefer a felt seal though.

Both the felt and lip seal installation require that you tap the seal holder apart. you do not reinstall the inner felt holder if you use the rubber lip seal. If you use a felt seal; place the felt seal inside the small tin retainer, squirt some motor oil on the felt, and then tap the retainer back into the holder. If you use the rubber lip seal; keep the small tin retainer for future projects. Make sure to apply some lithium, or silicon, grease to the crank and seal before gently slipping it on. A turning motion generally keeps the lip from rolling back during installation.

In recent years the quality of the available felt seals has gotten terrible. Almost every one of them is cut so there is one thin spot on the inner edge. Both Victor/Reinz and FM/FelPro also switched to cheap type F6 felt to lower costs. This was a major reason that Victor/Reinz stopped making full gasket sets for 206 OHV engines. I contacted the factory and they sheepishly admitted that quality did suffer. The last load of gasket sets that left the factory caused them to get a lot of nastygrams and cat calls.

In a few weeks new type F1 felt seals will be coming around. They should have been here in March. Unfortunately the plans of mice and die makers often go awry.

Happy Motoring
Charlie at
Moline Parts

My dealer did give me a new retainer to use with the new seal. When I saw the oil grooves on the crank, I figured I couldn't use the new style seal. Will hold on to the old retainer/felt assembly for future projects. thanks chris