Ok I have been following the FSM for rebuilding my engine and used petroleum jelly to hold the seals in place for assembly. As im sure many of you already know, one of the seals expanded. What the heck can you do to get it back to normal size? I have it soaking in a mild mix of Simple green/water right now in efforts to cleans the jelly. Has anyone else ever been able to get the seal back down to size?

I've searched and only found warnings regarding the jelly, no one has a solution it seems other than to replcae the seal again... if thats it, then so be it but if there is a logical way to return the seal back to size, i'd be down to give it a shot! Let me know!

 

one the rotor seals, just use a tiny bit... you don't even need a whole lot if you have a tight side seal clearance, as the corner seals are less likely to fall out. you can hold the apex seals in with a rubber band until you place it on the iron.

as far as a seal expanding, do you mean the coolant seals? Don't use petroleum jelly on the coolant seals. Use Crisco (don't use the new type of hylomar, it gets sticky too fast), the kind that comes in the blue tin. Crisco holds the seals in well and is easy to clean up, plus it won't harm them. I would just buy a new coolant seal if it's messed up.

 

Yeah im probably gonna have to replace them, grrr lol. Just was wondeirng if anyone had any solutions as im sure this is a common f' up lol. Damn u FSM, Damn u!

 

This is why I don't use petroleum jelly. It expands the seals. If you have to stop and walk away during the build for any reason your seals will be ruined. I prefer hylomar for the coolant o-rings and other orings and assembly grease to hold the other hard seals.

 

Yeah holy hell that notation should be in the damn FSM. I had to leave them for lunch lol. And I came back and it was fubared. Im just gonna see of the local AZRR has a set or otherwise i'll call ray again and have em send me a second set.

 

I always have a customer call or stop by or a delivery arrive in the middle of a build. Never fails so I don't use the petroleum jelly. I don't know of any way to shrink the oring back.

 

which way is the expansion? Do they get too fat or is the overall length that gets screwed up?

 

shouldnt you want it to expand after the engine is put together??

 

Not necessary.

 

Considering that the seal swelling is due to the seals absorbing the petroleum jelly, you "might" have a chance of sucking the oil out of the seals by soaking them for a short while in some brakeclean or similar (for the short term, they would swell more), and then letting them dry out. Hopefully they might shrink to their original length.

I've never tried this, but if you would have to throw them away in their present condition, it might be worth a try.

Dave

 

The swelling is proportional to the dimension in question, so since they are much longer than they are thick, the increase in length would be the problem.

Dave

 

Depending on how brave or foolish you are, you can just spend a few minutes trying to seat the expanded seal on an upward facing surface of an iron.

I had the same thing happen to me, and luckily after about 20minutes of dinking around I got the seal to lay in the groove, albeit tight, it stayed in place.

Engine has about 5,000kms on it and over 50 dyno runs....*knock on wood* its still doing fine.

But that said, obviously the best way is get a new seal.