Began putting engine back together yesterday and ran into issue of front oil seal for the crankshaft would not fit. Could not be forced on by hand or any tool we had handy. Too tight. Came with the rebuild kit from Reliance.

Is there a trick to putting those on or did they send the wrong seal? Metal rim, rubber with spring skirt and felt.

Larger seal for the rear slipped on no worries.

Dan 

Plot thickens. Service manual I have indicates there is a special 2 part tool.....known as K-M J-9243....."oil seal centering tool".....which is used in conjunction with the "oil seal expander"......that is used to install the seal.

Is there such a thing or an alternative?

Won't slip over the crankshaft. Can get one side on, but it stops dead there. I would normally use a socket of the right size and tap it on, but don't have a deep socket that large. Maybe a piece of steel pipe?

The two part tool shown in the service manual looks like it would help. Part 1 is a cone shaped "expander", which is about the same diameter as the crankshaft end on one end, and about 1/4" diameter less on the cone end.  Fit the seal on the smaller end, then the larger end butts up against the end of the shaft. The other part.....the oil seal centering tool....is then used to drive (tap gently?) the seal onto the end of the cone shaped tool so it then slides on the crankshaft....with even pressure on all sides of the metal cup.

Looks like it would work.....but where you gonna find these tools? Make em?

hmmm, my D-14 been leaking since day one...sounds like a 'fun' job I don't need to do..

for the expander, could you cut down/trim a plastic funnel.OK, maybe two, 1st one is a 'test'.....

for the 'installer', can you use a section of ABS or PVC or plastic EMT,with a cap on the 'hitting' end ?

Any super thin metal should work. Has to be thin as there is not much room.

Wonder where a guy could get an empty beer can? Hmmmmm.

Picture is coming into focus. Can see doing something similar with a thin, slick plastic like a water bottle. Had already thought of the PVC pipe for the driver and have small lengths of several sizes. A 1 1/4" ID might mate up to metal dust cup.

BTW, a secondary purpose (or was it primary????) of the centering tool.......is to center the end cover over the crankshaft. The mounting studs help with alignment, as would a few bolts, but the centering tool was to be used to get the seal cup in the end cover perfectly centered over the crankshaft before you torque it down.

it also appears the little spring skirt is important to keep intact if you want this seal to keep working in the long run. Part doesn't look like much, but seems there is a lot to it to get it working the way it was intended. Finding out there is a lot of that that goes on inside an engine.

End cover is on, but front seal is not.

We used a different, smaller oil seal to align end cover before bolting it in place. Same ID and OD, so aligned cover to that.

But rest of engine coming back together nicely. Internals are all in and engine is back in frame.

Apparently the K-M tool mentioned in the service manual is Kent-Moore.

They make (or at least made......don't know if they are still around or not) a whole family of tools like this used in automotive shops. Looked for pictures of these and found some similars.......but still having trouble seeing how these would help. At least the one's I've seen so far. Getting the edge of that flexible rubber skirt to slip over the sharp edge of the shaft it rotates on.....when it is such a tight fit.....is the problem.

What is needed is some kind of cone shaped flange (expander) that slips over the smaller diameter crankshaft, butts up against the larger shaft step the seal is supposed to slide over, then have something to tap it on with. Instead of a sharp edged shoulder, it needs gradual cone to slide up on. Haven't figured that one out yet.

The tool I spoke of was cone shaped, or at least tapered. The one I have in mind I think I saw in the FACTORY service manual for the D14

I think we are talking about the same tool.

Problem being it only exists in the service manual (and a fuzzy, sketchy picture at that). Nobody seems to have ever seen one in real life.

Since we can't seem to lay our hands on the actual tool, trying to come up with something that will duplicate the function. Made harder to do when you can't get a clear picture of how it actually works or looks like.

When I refreshed a SV345 IH Engine , The rear main seal was installed using

a plastic cup (nicely tapered )  trimmed cup with a razor , I happened to have a Cat seal installer that worked for driving the seal (although a pvc pipe could of been used )   Picture shows the trimmed cup and an intact one

Update.......despite all the good alternatives, I went about it the hard way. I made my own expander tool.

This was made by mixing up some two part marine epoxy and letting it kick off in the mixing up. Then used a 1 5/8" hole saw to cut the OD. That left me with the plug, which had a 1 1/2" OD, same as the inside of the oil seal and outside of the crankshaft flange it has to slide on. Then chucked the plug up in a drill and machined in a taper on the outboard end......down to about 1 3/8". Enough of a taper the seal would slide on and center.

Then drilled inside hole out with a 1 1/8" hole saw using same pilot hole as the original. Was left with plug as you see it. ID of my plug and OD of crankshaft were the same. Hole saw left a snug fit that went on easy, but no play in it.

Because the plug was still a bit under 1 1/2", then made a plastic shim (about 10 thousands thick) from a piece of clear, slick clam shell bubble package from something I had bought. Ended up being slightly larger than 1 1/2". (In retrospect, to avoid needing the shim, next time I'd use a 1 3/4" hole saw for first cut, and then mill it down to about 15 to 20 thousands over 1 1/2" to create the oversized step for oil seal to slide off of....to easily slip over the sharp edge of the flange shoulder.)

Oil seal then slipped over tapered edge and was pushed to the bottom. Expander was then slipped over crankshaft end, until it butted up against the larger step the oil seal sits on. Used a piece of 1 1/2" PVC pipe.....tapped it a bit and it slipped right on....since it was sitting on a slightly larger expander, sliding off onto a smaller step. Was then able to tap it home. 

Sorry.....no pictures of the shaft of my piece all mounted up.

Considering this is just a hard piece of plastic, and considering the difficulty in getting that seal on the crankshaft, method calling for a special tool, seems like it would also be a good idea to make such an expander tool out of hard, slick plastic, and include that in the rebuild kit too.

A 30 second job with right tool, way harder job than it ought to be without it.