Onan governor shaft seal replacement

Last year, some 200 hrs. ago, our Onan MDJE developed an oil leak at the lip seal for the governor shaft. I bought a replacement seal but never installed it as the leak quit (!). This year the leak reappeared with a vengeance. In reading the shop manual on replacement procedure it said to punch out the seal from the outside. This confused me. I can see punching something in from the outside as well as the converse. Being out on the water and not wanting to do more harm, I've held off the repair until now when I'm back in port. How do I remove the seal without hurting the bearing underneath it? Is it just a matter of tapping one side of the old seal with a punch until the opposite edge protrudes and can be gabbed? I can't believe that I would need to remove the flywheel cover, flywheel and gearcase cover just to remove the small oil seal. Thanks for your input.

Tator

Often a seal can be extracted by drilling one or two holes in it and threading in some self tapping screws like drywall or wood screws into the holes. Then pull on the screws. Have done it many times, but not on this particular machine.

Thanks for the reply. This method would be difficult as seal is only about 3/4" in dia. and shaft would have to remain in place without removing aforesaid components. Not much room to access.

Tator

Picture?

I'm not sure if it would work with a smaller seal, but I have typically been able to jam a screw driver past the old seal lip, and get the end of it hooked under the rigid part of the seal body, then lever out. Just keep in mind that this approach will trash the seal lip, so once you start, there is no turning back. Same with Ski's approach. So be sure that new seal is the right one before you start

There is a temporary fix available to you. It is an oil stop leak additive. Added to the crank case it swells any rubber it comes in contact with. Might get you through the season, maybe longer.

Generally I don't advocate oil additives but just saying...

pete

Tator - I have a similar issue with my MDJE governor seal. Did you ever get this done? How did you go about changing the seal?

I could never get the shaft to seal properly. I replaced the seal 3 times. It would work for awhile and then leak again. I think the shaft itself needed replacing. There were enough other issues that I finally bought a new 6kw NL genset.

Tator

Thanks! But how did you go about replacing it?

Sorry I hadn't answered your question. I'd just woken from a nap and was heading out the door. If I remember correctly, I took off the governor arm and used a dental pick to carefully pull out the old seal. I put some lube on the shaft and pushed it on and then used a small pipe or hard tubing to tap the seal on the rest of the way with a small mallet. It seems like the seals were getting hard to find. it would have been a lot larger job to remove the shaft. Hope this helps.

Tator