That's good you got the orientation correct should be good to go.

The LS rear seal is a good design much better than the old first Gen small block. That seal was a two piece design that was prone to leak. You had to dab RTV between the halves and cross your fingers. The early 283 and 327 SBC's had a rope rear seal and they were a nightmare lol



Rope Seal

 

Oh god that does sound awful

Yeah I saw some oil running down on the back of the rear main cover so I think I got the oil leak. Cross my nuts hope to die that it is. I think I did well on the install, hardest part was having about 6 inches of clearance to wiggle my ratchet and about 8 inches from chest to oil pan. Tight fit lol

 

I've had this long odd ball wrench in my tool box for years. When removing the rear cover on the engine stand it's pretty tight in there too... nothing seemed to fit... then

I remembered that odd rascal

 

I don't even want to think about trying that, replacing an oil pressure switch was bad enough with firewall clearance.

 

I’ll take a pic of my setup today lol
my girlfriend says no working on it today because I have concrete burn on my back. She is going to the movies so that means work on it for two hours

 

You do as you're TOLD and let that little birdcage heal

 

Hahahaha it’s her excuse to spend a day with me. I’m getting back massages and shiz so I’m down with pretending I’m a cripple for a day or so

 

Major serious caveats re. FSMs:

They were written to cover the parts that were available (1) from GM (2) at the time (3) to be installed at/by the dealership.

If ALL 3 of those things don't apply to you, then the instructions might not either.

ATSG transmission manuals for example, are CONTINUOUSLY updated, as new parts appear, old ones get superseded, etc. etc. etc.; which is why they're SO MUCH BETTER than FSMs for that. In fact there are SEVERAL transmissions that if you follow the FSM instructions but use 2021 parts, you'll end up with SODOMY. Won't work. Might not even assemble.

Please note that I am NOT saying "the FSM is wrong"; NOT saying "they don't know what they're talking about; NOT saying "don't install your seal that way"; NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT. Don't accuse me of any of that. Only, take whatever it says, with a grain of salt, if there's ANY possibility that things might have changed in the last 20 or however many years have gone by.

 

Hey Bartender... I'll have what he's having... make it a double

 

My meager work area lmao