Gear housing gasket

[JamesStevens]

Hey guys we have a 03 that we need to change the gear housing gasket. We have never been in the motor that far (we just did the timing cover/front seal 4 weeks ago) It might be a stupid question but do we need to remove those gears to change that gasket, and will we need to redo that front seal? (we put a sleave kit on it last time we were in there)

Any special tools?

Thanks in advance

James

 

[SRadke]

Short answer, yes. You'll have to do everything you did for the cover gasket in addition to pulling the CP3 gear and cam. To remove the cam involves valve train disassemble, full front end disassemble (bumper, ac condenser, aftercooler, ps cooler, radiator) and the cross member in the front of the engine. You may be able to do the work with the cam pulled half way out to avoid having to remove the front cross member as removing this requires cutting it I half and welding back together. In short, 10-12 hr job if you know what you're doing.

-Scott

 

[JamesStevens]

Oh wow thanx SRadke, even though I was hoping to be able to pull of those gears and leave the cam in. Thanx for the reply though

 

[JamesStevens]

Does any one no how common it is for those cam seal/gear housing seals to start leaking? The truck has been maintained regularly and has 302,000km on her. Seems to me to be leaking a bit soon. I no we did a good job doing the front seal last time we were in there and the timing cover isn't leaking again. But there is always a little oil on the bottom of the AC pump down there, so we are thinking it is comming from the bottom of the gear housing.

Any ideas?

 

[SRadke]

Weepage was not uncommon the 24 valves at similar mileage. I haven't been around any common rails with high mileage. Could also be coming from the front of the pan? Is this a dripping kind of leak or just a blown around mess?

 

[Joseph Donnelly]

You may be able to get the leak stopped without pulling the camshaft, etc. The oil leak is not under pressure, so you could spray clean the area very well and use RTV, either with the gear case loosened or not (if a somewhat messy appearance doesn't bother you). Loosening the gear case would require at least partially pulling the cam because some gear case hold-down bolts are behind it. You can remove the left motor mount through bolt, loosen the right side bolt, and lift the engine a little to gain clearance to pull the cam without cutting the front body cross member.

 

[JamesStevens]

We are going to do the pan gasket either way, and we may try your RTV trick to thanx Joe. SRadke it is more of a blown around mess, but seems to be more concentrated, and is always pooled on the bottom of the AC pump. We will clean it up real good again and try and see exactly where it is comming from again. It is hard to tell for sure, even driving a short distance and stoping and checking soon after a good cleaning etc...

It isn't very much oil, he dosen't have to add any inbetween oil changes, but it does drip a little when he parks, and just looks bad.

Thanx guys < >