cranshaft seal replacement.

so, i know i havent been on here in awhile....but wintertime has caught up with me, and its time to do something about that dime size drip i leave everywhere i go. My 1996 vfr 750 is dripping out of the crank seal right behind the front sprocket. picked up new seals in november, noticed the seal has a ridge that looks like it requires crankase to be split. tabled the project for a time when i wasnt as busy. any pointers on this? engine need to be dropped out, any shortcuts, suggestions or pointers toward a thread that this has been covered in would be great!

 

balls. it is for sure the countershaft seal, sorry for calling it crank seal you can tell my mind is still thinking in snowmobile engine terms. i removed the clutch assembly to check where the oil was coming from, there is a small drip forming there after every time it runs. i have the tools and know how to split the case, im not afraid of doing it i just wanted to know if the motor had to come out.

i have so much time and effort into this bike, full paint job, suspension work, and i was planning on selling in the spring to get a 1000rrr and now if i do all that work to fix the leak, i will probably want to keep it.........

 

You can take the front head off with the motor in the bike but for pretty much everything else just take the motor out. It's pretty easy actually, just clean and label everything as you go & recording the order it all came off helps too.

 

well, in previous years, i have had engine out of bike for other stuff, i have tool for clutch basket laying around somewhere if its the same socket as for my f4i stunt bike, its just i was realy hoping there was someway around the inevitable. i guess this weekend i fire up the the heater in the ole garage and drop the engine...probably take it to work to open up the case on the bench where its warm and i have more tools then at home. thanks for the pics, is there any sealer you would reccomend for the crankcase? like yamahbond, or permatex grey rtv that gets rock hard is what we use at work for honda car oil pans, or permatex anerobic i know i have done some snowmobile case halves with. again, thanks for the pointers.

 

The sealant the factory uses looks and feels like regular black RTV. I used red RTV, I wouldn't use anything that "hardens" you may never get it apart again. The cases are a "matched" set so theoretically it shouldn't even need sealant, but this aint a perfect world.

 

Seems silly to do an engine job to fix a small, non-critical leak that serves to keep your chain oiled.

Just the cost of gaskets alone can't be cheap. And it would take a LONG time, and there's always a chance something could go wrong.

Leave it alone, and use cardboard, as suggested.

On the other hand, a leaking countershaft seal could be the result of a failed bearing just behind it, which is often the result of an over-tightened chain, and THAT would require a repair.

You might be able to detect loose movement of the shaft or hear or feel roughness if the bearing is shot.

 

A good overhaul could save you LOTS of $ in the long run if you plan on keeping the bike. An overhaul would have prevented my catostophic engine failure that resulted in broken case, rods, pistons, gaskets mirrors, levers, bars, foot pegs, tires & damage to all the fairings. The repair estimate I got was much more than the book value of the bike. But hey, now I get a fresh start with her (and second job to pay for it all).

 

since i plan on selling the bike anyway to go with a litere bike for awhile (im sure il come back to another vfr at some point!) think i should just knock the price down, cut my losses rather then bust my balls on a project that i wont see the benefit of anyway? And squirrelman, exelent thought about the overtightened chain......

 

+1 with Squirrel, way too much work unless it gets too bad and even worse project for gen 5.