I have a question about replacing the rear main seal and although I know I'll probably get a lot of responses along the lines of "if you've already dropped the oil pan then just go ahead and replace it", I'm going to ask it anyway. 
As mentioned, I do have the oil pan off as I had to replace a bad rod bearing. I purchased a new rear main seal and was getting to ready to install it as the car was leaking pretty bad before I started taking it apart.
The thing that got me second guessing my decision however was that when I took a look at where you have would expected to see oil (right where the crank exits the back of the block) I didn't see any evidence that it had been leaking from there.
Where I did find evidence of a leak was around the very rear of the pan and a few inches up each side. Coincidentally (or not, depending on how you look at), several of the rear oil pan bolts were only just tight enough to keep from falling out and weren't even close to what they should have been. Based on this, my guess is that the rear seal may have been replaced by the previous owner and not all of the oil pan bolts got tightened properly.
So now that I've bored everyone to tears, does this sound more like a leaky oil pan instead of a problem with the seal itself? I know it might look like I'm being lazy but as I said in the title of this post, if it ain't broke then why fix it?
Christopher
As mentioned, I do have the oil pan off as I had to replace a bad rod bearing. I purchased a new rear main seal and was getting to ready to install it as the car was leaking pretty bad before I started taking it apart.
The thing that got me second guessing my decision however was that when I took a look at where you have would expected to see oil (right where the crank exits the back of the block) I didn't see any evidence that it had been leaking from there.
Where I did find evidence of a leak was around the very rear of the pan and a few inches up each side. Coincidentally (or not, depending on how you look at), several of the rear oil pan bolts were only just tight enough to keep from falling out and weren't even close to what they should have been. Based on this, my guess is that the rear seal may have been replaced by the previous owner and not all of the oil pan bolts got tightened properly.
So now that I've bored everyone to tears, does this sound more like a leaky oil pan instead of a problem with the seal itself? I know it might look like I'm being lazy but as I said in the title of this post, if it ain't broke then why fix it?
Christopher
