LS rms cover

1badc4 · Jul 12, 2019

Not sure if this has been posted before I ran into this issue during the job of pulling the motor out of my suburban and putting it into my Tahoe I figured I'd replace all the gaskets why the motor is out, also an oil pump and a timing chain. Through my nephew who noticed a picture I post it of my gasket kit he said not to put the rear main seal in without either replacing the cover with a seal included or using an alignment tool so I did some research and found absolutely nothing to help me with the situation my nephew is a shop manager at a dealership not a Chevy dealership what has worked on plenty of them and mentioned that Chevy had changed the design of the rear main seal cover or as GM calls it retainer, show before I spent $90 on a new cover I did some research and found nothing online that speaks of the differences in the revised cover but not taking a chance worried about the seal leaking after putting the motor in I hated his advice and just bought the cover so I thought I'd share my experience, now I'm sure more savvy mechanics will probably say I could have just put the new seal in the old cover maybe so I wasn't willing to take the risk with what is involved in replacing it should it leak. The big difference is the new rear main seal is much thinner and if you put it in the original cover or retainer it will be in too deep and not ride on the crankshaft in the same spot as the original seal, the new cover and seal is designed for the thinner seal and will maintain the seal on the crank in the same location attached is some pictures of the two covers I could be overreacting but never dealing with a LS motor but plenty of gen 1 small blocks the $88 was just a piece of mind for me.

1badc4 · Jul 12, 2019

1badc4 said:
Not sure if this has been posted before I ran into this issue during the job of pulling the motor out of my suburban and putting it into my Tahoe I figured I'd replace all the gaskets why the motor is out, also an oil pump and a timing chain. Through my nephew who noticed a picture I post it of my gasket kit he said not to put the rear main seal in without either replacing the cover with a seal included or using an alignment tool so I did some research and found absolutely nothing to help me with the situation my nephew is a shop manager at a dealership not a Chevy dealership what has worked on plenty of them and mentioned that Chevy had changed the design of the rear main seal cover or as GM calls it retainer, show before I spent $90 on a new cover I did some research and found nothing online that speaks of the differences in the revised cover but not taking a chance worried about the seal leaking after putting the motor in I hated his advice and just bought the cover so I thought I'd share my experience, now I'm sure more savvy mechanics will probably say I could have just put the new seal in the old cover maybe so I wasn't willing to take the risk with what is involved in replacing it should it leak. The big difference is the new rear main seal is much thinner and if you put it in the original cover or retainer it will be in too deep and not ride on the crankshaft in the same spot as the original seal, the new cover and seal is designed for the thinner seal and will maintain the seal on the crank in the same location attached is some pictures of the two covers I could be overreacting but never dealing with a LS motor but plenty of gen 1 small blocks the $88 was just a piece of mind for me.View attachment 226566 View attachment 226567 View attachment 226568 View attachment 226569

1badc4 · Jul 12, 2019

Erickk120 · Jul 12, 2019

As far as I know, I thought the only problem with some original ones were that some batches came with porosity problems, and tended to leak through the cover it self and not the seal. I did mine some months ago, reused the old cover, I just aligned it with the proper tool and called it a day, no leaks as of yet. I used felpro gaskets, I hope that isnt a dorman cover and gasket set.

iamdub · Jul 12, 2019

After a meticulous cleaning to the surface, I used RTV to glue the new RMS to the original cover. The seal and that white donut are designed so that the seal's lips stay folded the proper direction when installed. The previous design was too easy for the lips to be flipped backward, causing a leak. It not riding on the crank in the exact same spot is fine and is why you thoroughly clean the crank and why you aren't supposed to lubricate the crank to help the seal slide on better. The material of the lips is ever so slightly oversized and the lack of lubrication allows the extra material to be rubbed away, custom-fitting the lips to the crank. This is also why the cover alignment is critical and has such tight tolerances spec'ed. The precise assembly of these things is a beautiful art form.

1badc4 · Jul 16, 2019

Erickk120 said:
As far as I know, I thought the only problem with some original ones were that some batches came with porosity problems, and tended to leak through the cover it self and not the seal. I did mine some months ago, reused the old cover, I just aligned it with the proper tool and called it a day, no leaks as of yet. I used felpro gaskets, I hope that isnt a dorman cover and gasket set.

Yeah I read that pitted info. too. I bought the GM cover from Dealer which came with gasket and seal installed. I figured I could probably just put the new Fel-Pro seal and gasket on the original cover but I was a bit nervous and the new GM cover was a piece of mind for me. beings this is a driveway job I could't chance a leak. too much work to re do. I always use all Fel-Pro gaskets. and upgraded intake gasket. as I said in my post I wasn't sure of using thinner seal in old cover would or would not be an issue. I actually assumed not. but like I said. a piece of mind for me. basically I was noting differences in the 2 covers as I couldn't find info. on why it was changed. I did find info. on an LS forum about thinner seal worries but post did not have an end result post if it leaked or not

1badc4 · Jul 16, 2019

The cover I used.

LS rms cover

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