Call me Joe Hazelwood,
 

Cause I'm driving the Valdez! 83 240D, new front crankshaft seal, crankshaft spacer ring, still leaks, nice puddle right under the balancer.

Any idea what I did wrong?

Yeah....you bought a w123 :P

Other than that I don't know. :o

first obvious guess is you didn't clean well enough and the seal isn't set properly.

another idea is the timing cover - are all those holes filled?? they go right into the chain cavity.

Cleaned real well, I'm thinking that the second lip of the seal didn't get pushed over the spacer ring, of course, getting a good look at it is not trivial.

That is certainly a possibility. The seal will be ripped if it is caught between the spacer and balancing disc.

You are Joe Hazelwood
 

http://sarahcaldwell.com/blog/wp-con...-hazelwood.jpg






Do you really have a beard???

ROFL........................

Agree
 

very possible. :(

Replacing Front Crankshaft Seal with "Special Tool"
on the 1982 300TD Wagon (OM617)
http://www.peachparts.com/Wikka/OM617CrankshaftSeal

Clean the engine up with cleaner, including carefully using a pressure washer or quarter car washer to blast the heck out of it (avoiding anything that looks water-damageable) and then watch carefully over the next day or week of driving to spot exactly where the leak is coming from. Work from there and start washing ducks in the mean time.

He looks so purposeful in that cover. You think he'd look more like Elliot Spitzer
http://routingbyrumor.files.wordpres...pitzer-sad.jpg.

hey, looks like NASA has finally declassified its Roswell files.

Closure please
 

Did you fix this (how)?

I assume this was related.

Front crank spacer ring replacement
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/246735-front-crank-spacer-ring-replacement-2.html#post2145219