i got my fd about a month ago. going through the previous owner's service records. at 60k service the tech said

"car seems to be using more oil and smells like burning oil. gb found beginnings of oil leak at rear main seal and stationary gear o ring"

the car is now at 100k. can somebody translate this into english for a newbie? what are these main seal and stationary gear o rings? i've tried doing a search but doesnt explain exactly what these things do, just that it's bad

 

dont worry.. theyre not important...

They are two of the more important seals in your motor. Dont worry to much though, most rotarys leak oil.. havent you heard the saying "if a rotary aint leaking oil, its out of oil.."

just use redline syn. and drive it till it dies. theres not much else you can do. How many miles are on the motor?

 

They are pretty important, you can change them if your transmission is out. Take off the flywheel and there is a giant orange seal, that's the rear main. The round flange the seal is pressed into has like 6 bolts on it, if you take those out (don't rotate the engine!!) you can remove the whole assembly. Around the base of the flange is an o-ring about the same diameter as the rear main. I don't know if that made any sense at all, but it does to me

If I'd have caught this post earlier I could have taken a picture of it.. I just put the engine for my convertable together a few hours ago...