Figure 7: Recommended housing shoulder diameters

This is one of the frequent reasons for oil seal failure, and this is majorly because of the volatility of any of the elastomer’s constituents. These causative constituents may be part of the elastomer formulation, or gases that got entrapped in the elastomer during the molding process. The deceiving fact about this failure is that sometimes the oil seal won’t show any visual sign of out-gassing, however, sometimes when the out-gassing is extreme, they shrink.

Sump gaskets are usually in several pieces, often with separate curved seals that fit under the front and rear main-bearing housings of the crankshaft.

MECHANICAL SEAL

As can be seen from the seal cross-section shown in Fig. 14.2, shaft seals are complex shapes that require advanced mold design and molding techniques (see Section 7.3 for discussion of fluoroelastomer molding). For some time, most shaft seals were made in the United States by compression molding. Injection molding of shaft seals is prevalent in Europe, and is being used increasingly in the United States. An advantage of compression molding is that preforms (usually rings cut from extruded tubing) are used that closely approximate the amount of stock required for the final parts, so compound waste is minimized. For injection molding, the amount of cured stock in the central sprue and runner (actually a thin sheet leading to the seal lip) is often large compared to the stock required for the final part, so the waste of high-cost fluoroelastomer may be high. Such waste is reduced in modern injection molding designs.

Standard 3760/3761

Crankshaft rear seal

The major cause of extrusion and nibbling is stress caused by high pressure. This is commonly noticed when the oil seal has a chipped or nibbled look. In fact, in some cases, the surface of the seal tends to peel on its own, which makes it have a shaved look. What the stress does is that it increases the clearance gap between the mating edges, which causes the seal to get entrapped, and then leads to severe physical damage.