Rope Seal Question

Actually, two questions before I put this engine together. I soaked rope seal in oil, but should I use moly grease on seal surface before crank is dropped in? Secondly, what type of sealant is recommended on ends of seal where two halves meet? Prefer to do this correctly so I dont wind up with oil drops on concrete floor. Thanks, Bill

The last wick rear seal I did in 1976 is still doing well in my '53, 235 Chev. But it only has about 25,000 miles on it since that rebuild.

Here's what I did:
I didn't soak the seal in oil, but lacking a rear seal installer (same size as the crankshaft flange) I used a round rod like a small kingpin or smaller to press the seal into the groove working from the wick ends toward the hollows.

I cut the cap ends after making sure it was very well pressed into the groove, flush with the cap. The half of the seal in the block i left a wee bit proud of the block but only enough that you can kind of pinch it to a blunt point so that you aren't likely to get any seal fragments between cap and block face, but so that there is a little seal to seal pressure where the ends meet.

Obvious i guess,
but the object of having the block side a hair taller than the block face being to have a slightly pressurized meeting of the ends, making up for the contiguous sealing integrity lost because of the cuts and making the joints somewhat equal to the integral firmness or density of the overall wick surface after you PRESSED it into the grooves.

First I used carefully applied dots of black Permatex #2 on the DRY ends then I used, and would use again, a generous slathering of bearing assembly grease on the flange to wick surfaces after that. I wouldn't use grease.

Not much point in using Permatex on the ends if the ends are oil soaked, so if i were you i would use lacquer thinner or something on a cloth around your finger to get the oil off the 4 ends prior to the Permatex.

Hope that theorizing helps.
I hoped for the best when I did it that way and it seems I succeeded..

T

Bill.

A machinists wick seal installer looks like a fat round block (crank flange sized) with a handle on it for very firmly pressing the seal into the groove but as I mentioned a small round rod can work the seal in.

But the other advantage of the seal installer is that it can be leaned downward on for accurate razor cutting (fresh blade) of the ends.

So what I strongly suggest is that you lay your crankshaft on it's half shells in the block and razor knife the seal ends cutting towards your crank flange.

Then for the cap, lift the crank back out, put it on your bench with the crankshaft flange leaning heavily on the seal in your cap, for the most accurate cutting of the wick in the cap.

Sorry, typo correction:

But the other advantage of the seal installer is that it can be leaned on for downward pressure and subsequent accurate razor cutting (fresh blade) of the ends as you cut toward the installer.