Sorry but I have no idea what the "proud of a housing" is. Never heard that term.

So I was looking at the service manual last night, and I came across this:

Strangely, the long seal appears to be "correct".

Looks like you've been doing it right Mark!

That illustrates it perfect John. And yes, it's strange that it would appear this way in a manual. 

Was that from the 66 Chevrolet chassis manual?

You can see that the red one has the sealing lip flush with the base of the shell. Just like in the illustration. Whereas the blue one the lip is well above the base.

 

Perhaps someone with a untouched 12 bolt can look behind the yoke shield and see if indeed the original seal sits off the housing.

cdnpont wrote:

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 Was that from the 66 Chevrolet chassis manual?

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 Yes, '66.

 

seventy2plus2 wrote:

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 Note that in Figure 90 the seal is bottomed out in the carrier, so it has to have a 1/8" gap.   They're basically saying not to continue pounding as it will only go in so far.

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Agreed, there is a shoulder, but looking at the housing I just got from Mark, the shoulder is very small, and might not even be flat. I measure ~2.800" for the seal bore, but my calipers don't reach deep enough to measure the bearing race bore. The shoulder is at ~.545". Given the radius on the nose of the seal, I wouldn't say that shoulder is very effective at stopping the seal from being pounded in too far!

 

4SPEED427 wrote:

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 Wow, nice find! That is interesting. It sure makes you wonder "why not just make it the right depth"?

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I'm sort of wondering whether the original idea was that the shoulder would provide a positive stop and the gap at the flange was intended for easy removal?

 

Ugh. I finally put mine together, and I forgot to measure or refresh myself on this... I did end up with the Ratech 6109. Mark, with that seal, did you end up flush to the housing?