thewhiteknight02

You heard right. It will not budge. The pin/wire is starting to smash with zero movement.

91 2door XJ Laredo
178k.
Had a bunch of leaks, bought it and decided to "fix her up" before leaving up north at our vacation home in the WI Northwoods. And this is dampening the mood of the fixin.

Have:
Tapped it with hammer and brass rod, steel punch, assorted small screw drivers.

Loosened next two caps.

Sprayed PB and rotated it into seal.

Tapped on while rotating.

The main cap separated easily. But the lower seal is very hard and brittle. A wood screw into this made it crumble up. It also is stuck but I will get that out after the top, not too worried.

Questions:

How many main bearing caps can I loosen?

Should I just pull and replace the front seals/ gaskets to make the job worth all this trouble?

I am being very careful and do not want to cause any damage.

And to some, yes my search functions and abilities work. Seemed to exhaust all options.

I am thinking of loosening more caps except the front and warming the seal with a heat gun. Then I'll tap with brass rod. While someone rotates crank. Hope this works.



I want to drive you. And we are just about to have a huge storm.

Thanks.

Radi

I don't see a problem with loosening the caps a bit, then re-torquing them before installing the new seal.

Bustedback

You loosen all of them, just be sure to retorque the cap bolts to spec and in the proper sequence.

AbsoluteAggressor

I had the same problem. My solution was a different hammer with the same punch. It's amazing what a different hammer will do. Just get enough swing room, be careful, and have someone turn the crank. I lossened two caps also

thewhiteknight02

It's out. Bfh with pointed steel punch followed by 1/8 brass rod pusher. Had to man handle the crank, turning it from below while grabbing the old seal an pulling while turning. No one could assist.

The seal crumbled up on the way out.

Awesome. No damage done.

Thanks for the support.

Turbo X_J

I could have told you the problem right from the start, you only have 1 freakin beer sitting there.

XJ.89.Limited

I have to tackle my RMS next week. Hope mine doesn't give me much of a hassle.

thewhiteknight02

Hopefully. I ended up spraying PB blaster and brake cleaner on it and turning the crank. Then a few carefully aimed taps with a hefty but pointed steel punch and bang. She was loose. Took my time and cleaned it all very well. Lubed the new one with Dawn in a plastic straw shoe horn and it slid right in while rotating. Went in perfectly like it wanted to be there. Have to finish up a few other items before I fire her back up to check for leaks.

XJ.89.Limited

Good to hear that! I'll probably need to do the same thing with mine. I imagine that seal is stuck in there good.