Pinto Car Club of America

I'm pretty new at this heavy car maintenance stuff. My daughters car needs to have the main seal replaced, so I bought all the parts needed and the Haynes manual is very vague indeed on what to remove and how to replace  the seal. My question is which manual should I try to find that will show and give specific instructions on how to change the seal. I assuming it will be hard to find since I had to Epay the manual I have now. The car is a 76 wagon 4 cyl automatic I believe with the c-3 tranny. Any help would be greatly appreciated! al

Hello Al,
I have almost every Pinto book ever made.
Most are as you say "GENERIC".

FIRST do the easy checks!!!
Is your valve cover gasket leaking??????
They get old shrink and leak mostly at the rear of the V.C. gasket.
Check the V.C. Gasket FIRST!!!
It may save you alot of work

SOMEBODY HELP ME OUT HERE?
2.3's have 1 piece rear main oil seal?????

If the answer to this question is "YES"???
You will have to remove your tranny.
Take the tranny lines off completely before trying to start a project like this.
Go to the hardware store and get some brass caps to plug the tranny lines so dirt does not get in the lines Cap off the radiator fittings to keep them from leaking andthe tranny fittings too.
Remove the speedo cable. another place where you will have constant flow of fluid.
I use and old speedo cable end to plug that hole.
You also have a Vacuum line, that is BEST Unhook NOW so not to damage it.

NEXT take the oil pan off.
FIRST DRAIN THE OIL!!!!!
The oil pan bolts are 10mm in size
Most of the bolts are Metric by the way.
Trust me! This is a real dirty job!
You may want to drop the steering rack to gain more clearance.

Next remove the driveshaft.
An extra yoke is invaluable in keeping the tranny fluids from leaking everywhere.

WHY DON"T FORD TRANNYS HAVE DRAIN PLUGS????

I usually stick a small rubber hose in the filler tube and use a canister to pull the tranny fluid out with a
shop Vac. The Shop Vack is hooked to a canister and then a hole is put near the top and vacuum is applied.
The tranny fluid goes in the canister NOT the vacuum.

Next remove the bell house bolts and inspection plate.
Unbolt the torque converter from the starter ring "Flywheel"
Unbolt the cross member and remove the tranny trying to keep the converter inside the bell house .
IF THE CONVERTER COMES OUT? You Will  Have a MESS!!!!

Once the tranny is out of the way, remove the rear main bearing cap.
You may need to loosen the rest of the caps to let the crank drop down to remove the seal.
This would be a good time to check a few bearings to see how much wear they have.
Install NEW bearings if they have excessive wear.
Especially check the rear main bearing as the loss of oil from the seal usually means the bearing is not retaining sufficient oil. Starving the bearing of oil.
After replaceing the oil seal and re torqing the mains check a few rod bearings too.

Hopefully none of this is nessissary as you will find the V.C gasket is just leaking. :)

From Pintony

I agree with Pintony, the easy way to get to it is to remove the tranny, pan... It can be done other ways. I changed the r.m. seal in my racecar without droping the tranny. Not much room to work, but was do-able. I need to also say that on my wifes pinto, when I tried to do the same, the upper WOULD NOT MOVE (did alot more than detailed here). I removed the engine because I needed to  remove the crank. Once the crank was off I still had to work at getting that seal off. No glue, but very dry. If I had to do one again, I would just pull the engine to start with, they are not that hard to get out. If you do it any other way and have problems, you will be pulling the engine anyway, or putting it back together to bring it somewhere to have it done. (I droped the crank out of my vw gti racecar with the engine in the car, I won't do it again)

Bill