Originally Posted By: NoNameJoe
If you did the inner sealing lip, sorry hate to break it to you but it's likely to fail. PTFE seals are special because the sealing lip has PTFE that sort of melts or transfers a little PTFE on to what it's sealing against. This makes the sealing surfaces slide on each other smoothly.
Greasing the sealing lip prevents this from happening. There are peculiarities with PTFE seals vs other materials like neoprene or nitrile. For example PTFE seals usually come stretched with a ring you are only supposed to remove when installing (some of them say to use the ring to guide the seal into position). Then you're supposed to wait a few hours for the inner sealing lip to shrink a little. Then you start the engine and it transfers the PTFE over.
This is the correct answer. PTFE is a self lubrication seal which means some of the material transfers over to fill the voids from normal use. It's the same concept as the modern sealed ball joint/tie rod. If you get oil or grease on the shaft, the material transfer can never really occur effectively so now you'll have a leaky seal. As to how much oil you're going to be leaking, who knows. You are also supposed to use the included plastic guide when installing the seal and manually turn over the shaft a few times before operating normally.
If you did the inner sealing lip, sorry hate to break it to you but it's likely to fail. PTFE seals are special because the sealing lip has PTFE that sort of melts or transfers a little PTFE on to what it's sealing against. This makes the sealing surfaces slide on each other smoothly.
Greasing the sealing lip prevents this from happening. There are peculiarities with PTFE seals vs other materials like neoprene or nitrile. For example PTFE seals usually come stretched with a ring you are only supposed to remove when installing (some of them say to use the ring to guide the seal into position). Then you're supposed to wait a few hours for the inner sealing lip to shrink a little. Then you start the engine and it transfers the PTFE over.
This is the correct answer. PTFE is a self lubrication seal which means some of the material transfers over to fill the voids from normal use. It's the same concept as the modern sealed ball joint/tie rod. If you get oil or grease on the shaft, the material transfer can never really occur effectively so now you'll have a leaky seal. As to how much oil you're going to be leaking, who knows. You are also supposed to use the included plastic guide when installing the seal and manually turn over the shaft a few times before operating normally.