Oil Seal Driveshaft issue

[ortope]

Today I noticed a small oil leak from the oil seal of the right drive shaft.

I asked my mechanic, an official Lotus dealer by the way with 20 years of experience,
if it would be a problem to replace it and he told me that you should only mount oil seals
that have a golden finish on the inside,



because the ones with a grey/black finish could eventually start leaking when just installed.



Furthermore I saw a new type of oil seal proposed in the Netherlands, that shouldn't have the leaking issue.
They claim that the actual oil seal sold are made in India and have some quality problems.



Any thougs or experience on this behalf?

Thank you and happy Eastern

[trackrod]

Hello Ortope,

fixing a leaking drive shaft seal could be tricky. It's always the right hand seal that leaks because of the long and unsupported drive shaft.
At first I used the 'improved' dutch seals too but the only difference I noticed that they are more difficult to mount as there is no 'hat' that prevents the seal from being pushed to deep. Could be that the only improvement is that they sell much better calling them 'improved'.I would stick with the original style with the re-inforced steel hat.

I bought these here and they were fine: https://www.elise-spares.com/index.php? ... uct_id=182

The unsupported drive shaft often runs considerably out of round and the seal has a tough job to keep it tight. Try to wiggle/rock your drive shaft up and down right at the gearbox. If you have too much movement you may be in need for a gearbox overhaul. Difficult to tell what's too much as all of them have a fair amount of play. I needed to replace the complete diff on my gearbox to finally cure the leak.

Klaus

[ortope]

Thank you Klaus, Very helpful!