zf320 output flange question

[arch4ngel]

I'm well into my swap and almost to the point where I can start buttoning everything up.

A couple weekend ago I decided to tackle my output shaft seal. Unfortunately I waited until the motor and trans were in the car, making the job more annoying than necessary.

The nut came off easily enough with an impact but the flange was on there very well, too well to remove by hand. A short trip to autozone and I had it off with a 3 jaw puller.

My luck must have ran out that day because I bent the seal trying to drive it into the housing with a socket. I took a closer look and found a ridge in the seal mounting surface. I sanded it down till I couldn't feel it with my finger then polished it up a bit.

I ordered a couple more seals (to be on the safe side) then made some time last weekend to do the install. The first seal again went in a bit crooked and was instantly fubared. Doh!
Second seal went in straight but still took many hits with my makeshift seal puller before it would seat fully. I've done a bunch of different seals on these cars both transmission and otherwise and never had such a problem. Didn't worry too much about it at the time but worth mentioning.

Lastly I cleaned the flange and mounting surface and coated the splines with some curil-t. I moved it into place as far as I could but had to tap it on the rest of the way with a rubber mallet. Once it was on far enough I threaded the nut and used an impact to drive the flange on the rest of the way. I didn't crank away at it much, but measured with my torque wrench to ensure it was over 140 lb/ft.

It was, but I noticed at this point that the flange was no longer moving freely on its axis. It can be moved by using both hands but only with some force. I backed off the nut verified the flange spun freely. I torqued it down to 89 lb/ft (pretty sure that's the measurement, used whatever the bentley recommends) and the flange is back to feeling like its binding.


TLDR: Flange was fine, removed to change seal, after torquing now it seems like it's binding.

Did I over torque the nut and kill the bearing?
Has any one experienced this before on a zf320 or 310?
I've done a couple getrag 260 output shaft seals and never had a problem like this.

[36brua]

I hate that seal .... by any chance did you hit the shift selector into gear causing a drag ??
you coated the splines with curil ? if you did the splines I'd guess the curil was force out the end next to the bearing face and you glued the
face of the output flange to the bearing which would make it hard to turn ?

[arch4ngel]

I made sure the trans was in neutral.

The curil adhering to the bearing face would make some sense but, I mixed up the order of things in the op.
I first put on the flange without curil on the splines.
It was binding so I took it off again to inspect if anything was wrong.
Did some research online, couldn't find anything about the drag/binding but did read about some folks having better luck with leaks after coating the splines.
Coated splines, reinstalled, problem still there.

Any other ideas?

Edit - Also forgot to mention, I only used curil on the outer half of the flange splines, which in theory should have pushed the remainder of the sealant to the outside of the trans.

[arch4ngel]

Anyone?

[R3VMEISTER]

Bringing this one back out of the depths. I am currently doing this and I am having the same issue. Did you happen to figure out what the issue was? I am concerned as there is quite a bit of drag when trying to spin the output shaft by hand.

Thanks

[arch4ngel]

Unfortunately I never had a chance to resolve the issue. Long story short I had to drive the car cross country not long after discovering this so I bolted it up as is. It developed a leak after a couple thousand miles but fortunately allowed me to make it to my destination. I ended up replacing with a rebuilt transmission so never dug into the problem. If i had to do this again I would get that seal replaced at a shop.