Jaguar Repair: rear main seal, rear main oil seal, type seal

Question
is there anyway to put rear main oil seal in 86 xj6 jaguare without ermoving oil pan

Answer
Hi Jim,
You hit a sore spot with me and BLM on that subject. The retainers that hold the two halves of the seal are bolted in and the pan covers the bottom one. Trouble is there is worse news. The upper half is bolted to the back of the block with three bolts. The lower two can be removed easily but BLM in their great wisdom (or lack of any) put the upper bolt in behind the crank flange so the ONLY way to get it out is to drop the crankshaft down some. The casting of the engine block shows it was meant to go up above the flange so it could easily be removed. DUH!!

The lower half of the seal retainer is bolted to the upper half and covered by the pan. So as it stands you need to drop the pan and drop the main bearing caps to allow the rear of the crank to lower enough to remove that ONE stupid placed bolt. Some have tried to drive and pull the upper half of the rope type seal out like some domestic cars do but I never seen a success story come of that as the retainers are "V" shaped and thus they have the seal wedged in.

Good luck,
Howard