Hello,

I'm replacing the clutch on my 1998 Honda Civic CX, manual trans with about 230k miles. Original D16Y7 SOHC non-VTEC engine. My son drove it for years, and I didn't. Now that he has another car, I drove his around the block and parked it. It obviously needed a new clutch and brakes. I then found out in needed tie rods and new ball joints, so I've replaced those as well.

After I got to the clutch/flywheel out, I thought I should go ahead and replace the rear main seal. I don't think this has been done on this car. After discovering the hard way that I have to drop the oil pan to get the rear mail seal housing out, I managed to get a little too energetic with it. There are two guide pins, and they are bent. I thought about just bending them out straight? Is that a good idea or not? Also, should I use gasket sealant on the paper gasket that came with the seal? I have "Versachem gasket sealant #1" that I got from the autoparts store....will that work? Just a light coating on both sides of the paper gasket? Should I use blue thread lock on the bolts?

I have also used the jack on the oil pan to hold the engine up while I worked on it. I event eventually got uncomfortable with that when I was loosening larger bolts and thought torquing the flywheel down is going to be interesting, so I got an engine bar that holds it up. I plan to replace the oil pan and seal as well. The old oil pan is much thicker and the lip around the edge that bolts to the block seems sturdier than the new one. The Fel Pro gasket I got also comes with what looks like little spacers? Any idea what I do with these and if I should just use the original pan? I don't think it's messed up very bad, but it has had the engine resting on it for a week. Because I couldn't find decent bolts to help hold the engine, I used two of the ones that are used to bolt the trans in...obviously, those have to go to get the transmission back in, so I was going to go back to the jack stand under oil pan again since that's a fairly quick process...so, I was going to leave the old oil pan in there, then once the trans is on and recennected to the mounts, I was going to replace the oil pan....make sense?

Thanks for everyone's help.

-Brian

 

Don't reuse those bent dowels. I would buy new ones from Honda. All the dowels in these cars are precision fit and keep parts in perfect orientation while the bolts only apply clamping force.

Also, there should not be a paper gasket on the oil seal housing. Instead it is supposed to be a bead of Honda Bond. Please see the FSM pages below.





On the 92-95 the OEM oil pan gasket has metal ring spacers near the corners. This is to prevent over mashing of the gasket in theory. I suspect your felpro gasket is doing this same thing. I would use them.

See the fsm pages below regarding the rest of the job you are talking about.

 

This comment is too late for you, but for future reference, removal of the oil pan is unnecessary to replace the rear main seal.

Using a jack under the oil pan to hold the weight of the engine and to adjust the engine height is fine.

 

TomCat39,

Thank you for those sheets....very helpful. I ordered the dowels today and will be picking them up from Honda along with some Hondabond. I'll ditch the paper gasket. I had permatex red which is probably OK, but I'd rather use what's in the specs. There are a few other things I can possibly pick up as well. My clutch install that's turned into a lot more is almost done.

-Brian

 

I'd already started removing the cover, and once that was done, I'd destroyed that seal to the block, so I have to go in and clean and do a new liquid gasket in there. Like you said, just to replace the sea,l I didn't need to remove the oil pan. There was also a lot of oil in that area, so I feel better just doing all of it...it's turned into a learning experience.

 

Just to be specific you will want to finger tighten the rear main cover bolts and slowly tighten them in a criss cross pattern.

If you tighten the rear cover very quickly one bolt at a time it can cause a slight misalignment with the rear cover stretching the seal

 

Also usually I try the pan gasket first to eliminate un necessary work, then if that doesnt fix the leak I do the rear main seal without removing the rear main cover

I think most of the daily driver non modified cars that I repaired had the stock clutch last till about 260k'ish miles

 

Mine's at over 230k, so probably about time. I've already got the rear main seal cover off and cleaned up. Do you suggest using thread lock on the 4 bolts? I've read putting motor oil and some type of grease on the inside of the seal. I won't be starting the car for probably a week after I get it installed.

Thanks,. Brian

 

For the inside lip of the seal I use vasoline (clean pure petroleum jelly) and add a little bit of molybdenum grease to it for metal friction reducer.

 

So I got a new rear main seal from Honda.. Already had some sorry if great in it. Great. I place it on the rear main seal cover, it seemed to push in early on one side. So I pulled it out, reset it and took a rubber mallet to gently tap it, and one side went in easily.... Could the seal be out of round and will that be a concern over it's seated in the cover?

 

Should be fine.

 

My Car : 1997 HX 5MT 310k miles all stock

Quick question: For the oil pan on the D16Y5 of the HX, the instructions for the Hondabond are a bit confusing. Should there be HondaBond all around the oil pan or just on the corners of the specified ? Reading step 2 below carefully it says:
1) Apply gasket to the "block mating surfaces"
2) Apply gasket to the shaded areas.

So does this mean put gasket all around the block side mating surface, and then on the shaded areas of the gasket on the pan before putting it together ? It's a bit confusing to me.





Any help is appreciated .