Jaguar Repair: Rear main oil seal xke 1963, 3.8 litre, rear main oil seal, rear flange

Question
Hi there.
Can you advise on whether I can change the rear main oil seal
without removing engine/gearbox and splitting units. Nothing
in official Jag manuals
Thanks..Tim Kingaby

Answer
Hi Tim,
I have seen mechanics try to do it in the car but it was not very successful. The main reason is that the crank rear flange restricts access and you have to drop the crank a little. You have to remove the engine. Jaguar, in their infinite wisdom (or lack of) displaced the upper bolt that holds the seal adapter on the back of the block down behind the crank flange requiring the crank to be dropped down.

Also, if you have not pulled an "E" type engine before note that they tell you to insert two 3/8 inch steel rods in one of the bolt holes on each side in the torsion bar mount so that you can remove the steel plate cross member. Be SURE to use "Hot Rolled" (hardened) 3/8 in. rods. I made the mistake of using cold rolled steel on my first one back in the early 60s and the torsion bar mount just about sheered it off as even with the front wheels hanging there was still enough pre-load on the bar to turn my steel rod into a "Z" and I had a hard time getting it out. I quickly got hardened 3/8 rod and ground the end to a bullet point.

You normally can't remove the transmission with the engine in. The factory paid us 16 hours to put clutch in because they said you have to remove the engine and trans as a unit. I was the first in our dealership to put a clutch in and it took me 16 hours to do it (by the book). But I noted that it was only the top bell housing bolts that were the problem so the next one I dropped the engine straight down by removing the motor mounts and since it will not come all the way out that way I just dropped it down far enough to get the top bell housing bolts. The clutch job thus took only 6 hours to do.

Another mechanic tried that method to replace the rear main seal but when he found that he had to lower the crankshaft that turned into a monkey puzzle and he would have been better off just removing the engine to do the job.

Howard