I would like to know how hard is it to change just the front rotors apex seals, and can I do it with a Haynes manual and while the engine is still in the car. If this proves to be an easy thing to do, I will do this instead of changing the engine. And are there any online websites that show how to do this? Thanks.

 

Sorry, dude. Bad apex seals means motor rebuild. Well, now you have an excuse to build a badass motor :].

Mike

 

Yeah, apex seals are an internal engine part, and require engine removal and disassembly. Did you look through the leading spark plug hole to see what the look like? if two look similar (smooth rounded looking) and one looks vastly different/is missing, then that one is blown and you might end up needing to replace a housing and the rotor as well, MAYBE. You won't know until you pull it apart and check.

Just curious, why do you want to replace them?

 

NOt replace them, but put them in. I did the mirror trick, and on the front rotor, it looked like there were grooves. so I thought for the time being, that I would just hopefully be able to take the front of the motor apart and slide the rotor out and be done with it, for the time being.

 

Unfortunately, that won't work because you have to take the motor apart starting from the back. The motor is put together like a sandwich and the tension rods(the bolts that hold everything together) go in from the rear side housing, through everything else, and thread into the front side housing. You HAVE to take the whole motor apart to replace apex seals. Plus, like was mentioned earlier, if an apex seal is gone, chances are it caused some damage to the rotor, rotor housing, or likely both.

 

Anytime you loose a apex seal, it always destroys the rotor housing and rotor. Well to the point its unusable, trust me, never seen an apex seal that didnt. Well unless it was a carbon apex...

 

That makes me want to tear down the '87 engine just for curiosity's sake... because it has a definitely blown seal in it, YET it still builds good compression on the unaffected face. How can it be building good compression if the housing is trashed? Sure, if the housing were merely scored, the other two seals could wear in, but that'd take an awful long time and it would be visible when looking at them with a mirror. The two good ones looked pristine.

 

Well, you could reuse a rotor housing and even a rotor if the groove is in decent shape but I think the point is why? If you're going through all the trouble to rebuild the motor, it'd be kind of crappy to put it back together with damaged parts. It would definitely cause unregular wear on the new apex seals and you'd be back in there before you know it anyway.

 

I saw one that had a cracked apex seal, but had good rotor housings.

 

This method dont really work. YOu need to take the motor apart, clean, measure, more measuring, new seals, gaskets, and hopefully you can still re-use the housings.