Chucky’s 1966 Mustang rebuild

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I repaired my 78 trans twice, both due to being an old jet boat driver.
Twice in my first few years of Nautique ownership 40 years ago I had a boat suddenly turn in front of me at speed.   Driving Jet boats you always had brakes, slam it into reverse and gas it. The Jet boat would stop on a dime.
Well I learned slowly that Nautique trannys break when this is done. Twice.
In both cases it was stop fast or hit a boat, in both cases we did not hit anything but broke my boat. I learned slowly after the first one and did it again about a year later.. We used to ski a lot on the winding Sacramento river, in places where we went to find glass water it was narrow and winding.   Once in while you would come around a corner and find 3 or 4 boats coming straight at you and everyone had to scramble for space.    
The tranny came out easy and was not hard to tear apart and replace the broken parts.
I say easy because as a fairly young man with no tranny experience I was able to tear it apart in my garage and replace the broken parts and both times it worked like brand new afterwards.   
If memory serves correctly I pulled the boat tranny out Saturday and we were back on the water on Sunday. I believe the 78 did still use the Velvet Drive.
West Coast Correct Craft was only 4 miles from my home and had all the parts on hand and they always offered advice on install if needed. It was sad when they closed shop.

KENO wrote: Anybody can draw whatever conclusions they want from this picture. One of my conclusions is that it wasn't too smart of me to cut up a brand new seal just to see how it works.......or was it?

KENO:

We've come to expect precisely this from you:
- cut something up
- take something apart
- remove and replace from perfectly good engine
- spend your own ca$h at the parts store to acquire the "objects" in question
- have the parts numbers at your fingertips

...and, last but not least...punctuate your statement with the smiley 1-eye wink emoji

JQ

In the last photo shown above the Seal is crushed down on the white plastic, release some pressure and the actual shape of the seal will come back. Properly installed the V Shape with the spring still clearly shows as a V shape. Picture below shows a similar seal with a dirt excluder on the outside lip but the V shape with a Spring, shown a a circle riding on the V shape is how a seal rides on the crankshaft.

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Good deal Mark it will be interesting what they say. Just to confirm it seems that reverse 351 seal are available,it's the 302's that are NLA

8122pbrainard wrote: Mark, Great and I hope you get some good info over guessing with using finger pressure.

I know what you mean Pete.

The nerve of that guy, actually trying to help Chucky and anybody else with the same dilemma.

What's he doing pointing out to Chucky that his "smooth" teflon seal actually had ribs on it and showing it in a picture.

Or even worse he points out to MrMcD the actual location of the helix lines on the non teflon one piece seal using a picture again

Then he actually has the nerve to take a one piece seal and sand off the helix lines and offer it to Chucky at no cost so he can inspect it and try it if he thinks it'll work.

Chucky wanted to pay him but he told Chucky it was free as long as he posted the results whether good or bad for anybody else with the same problem.

And then he takes a perfectly good seal and cuts it apart to show how it sits on the shaft, and you over the computer can judge how the seal was or wasn't pressed down to hard.

It reminds me about your comment on the "hardware store" distributor spring recently that he chose to let slide since he's been thanked by a number of people who have gotten one and used it with good results in spite of what you might think of it.

I'd give MrMcD plenty of credit for at least reading everything and following up with Federal Mogul

You on the other hand.......well we'll just leave it unsaid

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Lots of interesting information – still seems based on the above info that a better seal (Perhaps the Teflon) would keep the least amount of oil from getting by the lip – then if you have no grooves to send it back or even if you do should be minimized, but it is out it is out. Perhaps etching in a few crank grooves and putting in a smoothed out seal would be better.   I don't know that this is a particularly vexing problem for the industry to solve as it seems there were possibly no or extremely few 1 piece rear main seal reverse rotation 302s ever built.   Very few correctcrafts after 83 had 302s and it is possible the few that have been seen in 83/84 mustangs/ski tiques’ were left over two piece blocks.

Absent the special order 25 piece minimum plus tooling cost seals I have never seen one listed that then became NLA. Basically the only usage is for those required to replace either the block or crankshaft while rebuilding a older 302 correctcraft, or someone looking to build a RH stroker 302 for again an older correct craft.   Maybe there is a twin 302 rig from the 80s out there somewhere but my guess is you were looking to go with a set of small counter rotating v8s by then you only had the chevy options.   Be interesting to know if any were actually ever made....

Gary S wrote: Where did "that guy" who had them made get them? Rope seal is working fine for my 2 piece block but they are hard to find now as well. And I imagine a RR rope seal is next to impossible to find now days,probably thrown out along with the NOS muffler bearings and Johnson rods when those shops closed....

I am 99% sure it was Felpro, it might have been PCM that gave us the inside sales contact information because the buyer was a direct dealer for PCM at the time. The 2 piece rubber seal for normal rotation works fine. I don't definitively know if the reverse rotation version was ever different or not but I do know from first hand experience that with a two piece block and a rh wick line crank the current 2 piece standard rotation seals work fine.

Meanwhile back at the garage, I figure since Pete didn't like my cutaway seal picture but mostly because I was curious, I'd do a cutaway of a 351w one piece rear main seal.

Since I have a short block taking up some garage space, it was relatively easy to take of the #5 main bearing cap, cut another new seal in half, slide it in place and take some measurements and a picture.

If you look at the picture, the shiny wear spot from the V seal is .060 inches wide, we'll call that 1/16 of an inch.

You'll also notice that the outer seal comes nowhere near touching the shaft. I could slip a .028 inch feeler gauge between the output flange and the seal all the way around.

That caught me by surprise but I also had a complete 351w close by and could do the same feeler gauge check with it's installed non leaking seal.

That ain't gonna hold back any oil that gets past the v and the helix

Who would have thought that the outer seal had a giant gap like that? The 302 outer lip may seat differently on the shaft, but it's on the way to Chucky and he can take a look at that.

Now the most interesting part is that from the tip of the V to the end of the helix lines on the seal was about .060 inch (1/16 inch) which happens to be how wide that shiny wear groove mentioned earlier was. No spring was put over the v area and I didn't dare press on it (to keep Pete from questioning my brute?strength) but the spring flattens things out a little giving that 1/16 inch wide sealing area mentioned earlier.

Seems to tell me that the point of the v and the helix area ride on the shaft, then there's a gap of about .028 inches the rest of the way back to and including the second (dust) seal

Couple this with MrMcD's info from FelPro posted earlier and you can bet a certain part of your anatomy that the helix has a purpose and is directional

Once again it might be one of those "you have to be there in person to understand it all type things"

Sometimes you just have one of those "huh" moments.

I was thinking about the gap at the back of the 351 seal and didn't remember having that gap with the 302 seal held lightly in place over the white plastic piece earlier in the thread.

So I dug the cut up seals out of the trash, put them side by side and there's quite a difference

On the 302 seal the outer lip seats against the shaft unlike the 351 seal that has the gap at the outer lip.

So Chucky, I think you have a fighting chance here to maybe have a non leaker if you try that smooth seal that's in the mail I'd fill that area between the lips with some really heavy, sticky, gooey grease

Here's a picture of the seals next to each other 302 on the bottom with 2 contact areas on the shaft 351 on top with just one

Whatever you do Chucky, good luck

   

Chucky wrote: I came across this chart. I find it very interesting and very related to our rear main seal conundrum. Happy Thanksgiving all!

Are you thinking because of the engine angle the oil capacity should be less? If so, you also need to factor in many marine engines have specifically designed oil pans. So, in most cases, oil capacity is the same for auto and marine for the same engine.

A little clearer pic from the BW manual