Help with oil pan and rear main seal

Austin O.

Austin O.

TJ Enthusiast
Supporting Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2022
Messages
644
Location
Charlotte, NC
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Got the oil pan off, there’s this big brace-type thing underneath it on the bottom of the engine. Never seen it before on other cars while doing research on rear main/oil pan.

It is preventing me getting to the rear main seal easily because it has like 30 bolts on it, 2 of which are connected to the block that the rear main is on. The bolts seem to be on there super tight, and it just seems like a lot of work to get it all off, plus, I don’t know what exactly it is.

What do I do? Main goal today was oil pan seal, but why not do rear main while I’m at it. I’m running out of daylight and would like to finish the job today, but I do have another car I can use tomorrow if I can’t finish this.
 
Yep, you're going to have to pull that cap girdle off. Then you can remover the rear cap.
 
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Make sure you get the torque specs to tighten it back down. Main bearing caps underneath it are kinda important to the engine
 
Longwhitejeep said:
https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/rear-main-seal-replacement-4-0.826/

This one has lots of good info. I'm about to dig into mine soon. It's leaking a lot more lately.
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Have you not yet switched to a High Mileage conventional engine oil? Especially if you're currently running a synthetic which can encourage RMS leaks this might be a far easier fix. It restores the RMS, it doesn't just plug it like most radiator stop-leak products do. Doing this cured a major RMS leak my former daily driver BMW developed that had previous had nothing but a synthetic engine oil.
 
Jerry Bransford said:
Have you not yet switched to a High Mileage conventional engine oil? Especially if you're currently running a synthetic which can encourage RMS leaks this might be a far easier fix. It restores the RMS, it doesn't just plug it like most radiator stop-leak products do. Doing this cured a major RMS leak my former daily driver BMW developed that had previous had nothing but a synthetic engine oil.
Click to expand...

I have only been running conventional oil in this. I can't remember if I used a high mileage version last time or not.
 
I've tried every oil and every leak-fix solution under the sun to address the RMS leak on our 4.0.

I have ZERO interest in attempting this procedure myself, for many, many reasons.

My next step will be to wire up a coffee can/drip tray filled with cat litter underneath the vehicle and dump it out every 6 months until the engine implodes and we replace it. ;)
Seems easier than messing with those original exhaust bolts.

I'll keep the oil filled in the mean time of course.
 
Longwhitejeep said:
I have only been running conventional oil in this. I can't remember if I used a high mileage version last time or not.
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That's good, though I'd certainly try changing it to a High Mileage version before tackling the RMS replacement. Even adding a small container of AT-205 Re-Seal (like on Amazon) to the High Mileage version wouldn't hurt. I'd give it 5-10 days of driving time to work. The High Mileage alone in my BMW stopped its major leak in under a week.
 
Jerry Bransford said:
That's good, though I'd certainly try changing it to a High Mileage version before tackling the RMS replacement. Even adding a small container of AT-205 Re-Seal (like on Amazon) to the High Mileage version wouldn't hurt. I'd give it 5-10 days of driving time to work. The High Mileage alone in my BMW stopped its major leak in under a week.
Click to expand...

My 05 does have German parts!

My rms and oil pan gasket showed up today. I'll try the oil first and see what happens.
 
For y'all installing these rear mains, let me save you the hassle of doing it twice. Use a Mopar rear main seal only, and pay close attention to the oil pan gasket when installing the pan. Sometimes the gasket will roll away from the cap in the rear.
 
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