Reply To: misc oil seal puller

[Don]

JACQUES wrote:

Basically …having no puller I still needed to remove that seal.

the external flange (seal rim) facing the prop is very thin and tears away if you try to pull it with pliers

Normally on a trailer bearing hub you reach in from behind the removed hub, line up a flat screw driver in the bearing inner edge and by alternately hitting the bearing rim from behind it gets pushed out.

I coud not use a flat screwdriver on the seal because the diam. is only .554 making the strike angle to narrow to reach the outer edge on the seal .

by using a 4 inch galvanized nail the angle of attack is the same but the nail’s flat head can contact the full “back rim” of the seal . there is enough room behind the seal to sneak in the round flat head between the seal surface and the carrier body .

hitting the nail from the other end (pointy end ground flat) allowed me to push out the seal by wacking it a few times at 90 degree spacing

If that seal would have been seated all the way in against the carrier I would not have been able to fit in a flat head nail

I can’t say if that seal is or is not normally pushed …all the way in… maybe the PO did not push it in all the way that is why I could sneak in the flat head behind it.

Well, I agree with your approach. Seal removal seems to go easier when attacked “from behind”, making it easier to just drive it out by tapping the driver tool of your choice with a hammer. Using conventional seal pullers with slide hammers just seems to bend the seal lips up allowing the puller to pop out of the seal. Eventually, the metal seal housing is mangled leaving you with a big mess to remove. The tricky part is crafting a driver tool that will reach all the way under the metal lip/contacting the outer edge. Like you say, this can be difficult, especially with the smaller diameter seals. You must also take care will driving the seal out from behind that the bushing surface is not damaged by your driving tool during the removal process….