27/02/2026
One of our customers came to us with a problem on their ford focus, which was causing them a bit of a head ache. A car that they have maintained fantastically over the last 4 or 5 years had started to lose oil and drip onto their drive. As you can imagine this isn't something you want to be cleaning up daily.
After inspection we found that the rear main oil seal was leaking oil through the gear box, which In turn was leaking on to the customers drive.
.... "A rear main oil seal (also known as a rear crankshaft seal) is a critical, yet small, rubber or silicone gasket located at the back of the engine, where the crankshaft exits the engine block to connect to the transmission. Its primary job is to keep engine oil inside the engine while preventing dirt and debris from entering"🤓🤓 phew!!
Unfortunately, to access the seal you have to completely remove the gearbox, which is quite labour Intensive as this also means removal of the battery, front wheels, driveshalfs, ball joints, engine mount, DPF, starter motor, all connecting pipes, leads and clutch fluid hoses.
While we had all this out the customer asked us to replace the clutch and flywheel, which are parts of the transmission (drivetrain), as the oil could have contaminated the clutch causing it to slip. Also because of the age and mileage, there's a chance that the clutch could go in the future if not changed and this whole job would need doing again.
We used a genuine oil seal sourced from and we used who provided us with an LUK repset clutch kit.
