Hi there Accord gurus,

Anyone have an opinion about how a camshaft seal should be installed?

I am in the process of putting my 95 Accord LX top-end back together. I started to put the cam back in the head and figured I would put the new seal in and then assemble it. Well, it appeared as though the seal was getting pushed a little bit out-of-round. I was worried about having a big leak later so I backed off that idea and figured, heck, I'll just slide it on like I would a crankshaft seal. This way it would be 'squeezed' evenly on all sides.

Well, I put the cam on the head, got everything torqued down. I started to slide the seal on the end of the cam and got about halfway into final position when I realized I had slightly rolled back the inner part of seal (out of sight, on 6-o'clock position). Of course, pulling it off destroyed the seal.

Please chime in and tell me which is the best method… before or after cam is installed? And yes, I have considered the $80 seal install kit available off ebay. Also, the PVC pipe or large socket method is fine for pushing evenly, but that would have definitely kept me from seeing the seal was getting rolled.

Thanks,

Mike

 

You should've installed the cam seal when you had the camshaft in your hand. I did that to all my cams installation with no problem whatsoever.

 

put heavy grease (wheel bearing grease, etc) on the shaft and the inside of the seal to help it seat properly. It will also help it on first start because you dont want to start it dry.