I have a 1947 Chevy Fleetline with a 216 that has a leaking rear main seal.
I found a NOS rope seal on eBay.
Can you guys tell me if it's the right seal for my car?
eBay item # 120848832420.
The Chevy part # on the package is 839129. Group no. 0.137
Is this the right part?
That is the correct seal for 1940- and up.
While I'm a fan of NOS parts, I would suggest going to NAPA or your favorite parts store and buying a fresh seal. I know NAPA has them - not sure about others. The seals tend to dry out and if you're going to go to the trouble of installing something like this, I'd get the newest one you can find.
The original seals I believe contain materials that are no longer obtainable and many have found the new replacement seals to be inferior in performance. If the NOS seal has been properly stored in the original packaging I would not hesitate to use it.
The "modern" rope type eals are junk. The cloth covering peels of after a few miles. The only good modern seal is the graphite seal made by Olsen gasket and sold by the Filling Station and Chevs of the '40's.
I was outbid on ebay, so I'm still looking for an NOS Rope Seal???
Filling Station. Part# G-1011 $18.50 Graphite Rope seal.
It is the ONLY one out there that works!
Fleetboy,
I do not know if you have ever used the index for old chat topics, but I strongly recommend you become familiar with it as you take on replacing your rear seal? I went through quite an experience doing this last winter, and had a lot of advise from our chat site in the process. The bad news was that I never solved my leak, made it worse, and decided to finally have a 1941 engine professionally rebuilt for my car. The good news is I learned a lot about my 216 engine. In the 37-42 Forum you can see 6 months of old posts on my struggle. As explained in my first post my problem began as clutch chatter and ended with replacing the rear seal two and a half times.
You should know that our 37-42 Forum is very active so it has a lot of users. You may want to followup unresolved problems with posts to that site? Here is directions to doing an Advanced Search and seeing discussion on my topic "rear seal."
At the top of the chat screen find the Search button and click on it, next choose Advance Search and click on (Advanced search tips). After reading the tips fill out the fields on the Advanced search screen. The "Key word search term" should be "rear seal" in quotes. The Forum should be selected, it should be 1937-42. Leave the "Display name search field" blank. Fill in the date of your search as "Newer than" 1 year and "Older than" 6 Months. Next select the "Submit button" and the appropriate articles of my chat will come up. To see how others have handled this problem change the dates of your search. One important thing to know is that the you will never get more than 50 responses to a search. So carefully navigate through the years you search, using one year to six month intervals. there are ten years of posts to go through on some topics, many will be hidden jewels of info that can help with almost any problem.
Good luck and be patient, Mike
Mike,
Excellent search advise. I hope many people take your suggestion and learn a bit more about the search tool. It may not be the best but once a person learns the "ropes" it is not too bad.
Terrific post on how to use the search feature. Don't think it could be better explained. If those points could be linked to the search feature I'm sure it would make life easier for those of us who are "computer challenged".!! Thank you, Mike!!
Mike, thanks for the great detail on how to use the search function effectively.
I really learned a lot from those post about the rear seal, it's making doubt I can fix this issue, or if anyone can... thanks for the info!
Yes.. Thank You...I'll "Bookmark" this page...Every time I go to use the Search I can't recall the right way to get result's...Kevin
Here's another description on how to use Search in Chat. I included some screen shots too.
https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php...Re_Retrieving_Old_Forum_Items#Post232052
Great job Bill. Maybe you could keep it at the top of the Chat Suggestions Forum for awhile, or even our 1937-42 Forum? Thanks, Mike
Money saving tip!
Go to your local parts house & ask for a
Rear main seal FelPro BS5048.
Within the past 2 weeks I bought one for less than $5.50. FelPro is a quality brand in the automotive industry.
This is probably the same item being sold for those high prices in the above posts. There cannot be that many Mfrs making this product.
Harold
Unless Felpro changed the their seals in the last few years I wouldn't bother to install their seal. In a few thosand miles the cloth covering will be wearing away and falling off causing a massive leak.
I agree with ChevNut in regards to it lasting unless as he states that it has been updated. The Felpro seal I used in my 51 only lasted for a couple of years. Less than 3000 miles.