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Rear main seal

2K views 9 replies 10 participants last post by  Jason, aka: Jeepin.com 
#1 ·
how many other guys 4.0Ls have a small rear main seal leak, or am i just the only one?
98 xj classic
 
#3 ·
You might want to check the back of the valve cover, sometimes it will drip down the back of the engine an look like it the rear main seal.
 
#5 ·
Rear Main seal

I've had my 91 XJ Sport with HO 4.0 for 3 years. now. I have done the Valve Cover, Oil Pan, and Rear seal thing, 2 times now. Both times the rear seal was toast. I figure it's just something I'll have to live with having an inline 6 cylinder motor i. e. lots of flex. I like the power and torque of the 4.0 for driving and 4wheeling so I'm good with this. I did buy one of the rubber/metal oil pan gaskets and it appears to be holding up good while the vavle cover regular rubber gasket has started to seep again. I'm hoping to find a rubber/metal gasket for that application before i change it again. Bottom line is from my experience the rear seal is just a bad design. Hope this helps.
 
#10 ·
Yup, both those areas are known leak-prone spots on the XJ. Neither are all that hard to fix/replace though.

If it's the o-rings at the oil filter adapter, you can buy a new o-ring kit from the dealer, or maybe NAPA. Getting the filter adapter off the motor is the worst part of the job.

If it's the rear main, that's not really a hard job either, and new seals can get had from most auto parts stores: http://jeepin.com/features/rearmain
 
#9 ·
I've got a bunch of little oil spots all over the place, but not enough to drip after the Jeep has been sitting overnight. Looks like my oil pan is leaking in a few places, the oil filter arm has oil on it, and the rear main seal might be leaking as well. There is fluid on the transmission, but I haven't figured out yet what it is. Looks like I didn't tighten down the fittings to my trans temp sensor enough because there is a drop of fluid on that too. Even though I used teflon tape and thought I was gonna strip the fittings because they were so tight. Guess it's time to add gaskets to the list of mods.

Oh yeah, 1998 classic here too.
 
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