Does the water pump shaft seal that I installed in the front cover of my 96 LT1 rebuild require the seals to be oriented a certain way. There is an inner and an outer seal on the ring and it would seem that the inner would better seal if turned inward towards the block, but there is no simple way to do this without it rolling outward upon install. I saw the tool that aids in installation as well as the You Tube video that accompanies it but it doesn't clearly show the direction of the seals when installed. Any experiences here?

 

Yes some experiences, with pictures too: https://camaroforums.com/forum/lt1-l...ve-seal-43601/

 

Yeah I just changed my water pump drive seal and I didn't realize I would need an install tool. When I put the drive seal on the inner seal just flipped inside out, my oil leak now is worse than it was before lol. Looks like I'm goin to be using that idea to do the job all over again :/

 

It's too bad the gasket set didn't come with how-to instructions or a warning. When I first tried mine without a tool, knowing how gaskets seal, I could see that flipping the gasket lip outward would have caused leak problems.

 

Yeah that would have saved a lot of work for me. The first time I did it I thought it was weird that the seal was so stiff but since I didn't really have much time to work on my car I had to put it together anyway.

 

The gasket makers could probably knock out a cheap plastic install tool for a penny a piece in a China sweat shop, and add one line of text to the instructions. But do they? Noooooooo!!!
Figuring it out the hard way is much more fun.