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The rear main seal on my '47 Super Clipper is leaking quite badly. Now that we finally have a couple of days of nice weather (a balmy 50F today but snow flurriesforcast for Friday!) I have removed the oil pan and have a new new rope seal from Max Merritt in hand. The manual suggests dropping the crankshaft to get the upper portion in but this will entail removing the transmission which is a daunting task lying on my back under the car what with the Overdrive unit attached. I have a tool known as a Sneaky Pete which I am tempted to give a try. Has anyone had any experience good or bad using this tool? In addition any tips which might lead to a successful repair would be appreciated as always.

I've never used one but being curious and nosey did a Google. After sifting thru lots of things called sneaky petes, notice there are at least 2 manufactures that make it and different styles.

The only actual review I found was from a guy on an Australian forum who had mixed luck. Whichever version he was using apparently has a tendency to sometimes come ungripped with the rope halfway thru. He did say that things worked better with the crankshaft loosened.

KD looks to me the better one and has a Chinese finger type grip -- the Lisle apparently has some kind of clip that attaches to the rope--pictures I found were a bit small for detail. I guess it is worth a try, considering the alternative--particularly the Chinese grip one. Seems to me it would be hard for the rope to come out of that type.

Howard, I have the KD "Chinese Finger" style and I had already Googled the same info you did also. I have never used one so thought I would query here. as always thanks for the help. I have a few weeks til the first shows so maybe I'l just pull the tranny and put in a new clutch also while I'm at it and drop the crank. Am I getting to old for this stuff, it doesn't seem as much fun as it used to?

I used that type of tool many, many, years ago, and IIRC, I found that removing the spark plugs and turning the crankshaft while you are trying to pull the rope seal around, made the job much easier. I always found the hardest part was getting the old seal out since the "puller" tool would always just pull out of the "rope".

Thanks, I am planning on pulling the spark plugs to help me turn the crank. I have the fly wheel cover off so I can do my one man job routine working at the seal and turning the engine with a screwdriver on the flywheel.

The success rate of the sneaky pete is definately not 100%.

If the crank main journal has an oil gallery in it then a small "T" (more like a slanted over "T") type tool can be inserted into the crank oil gallery and the bearing shell rolled out. Of course that assumes inserts not babbit.

I don't have much experience with this, I only changed this type rear seal twice over the years. Used the Chinese torture toy and it worked just fine, though we did remove the spark plugs and loosen all the main bearing caps equally about a turn or two (don't remember how much), though certainly not enough to require pulling the transmission shaft out. If I remember correctly the jobs were done concurrently with replacing the main bearing shells.

Dave, A large size cotter pin shaped like a slanted "T" can be fabricated to be used to roll out the bearing shell. If you decide to try the job without removing the transmission. You are right, this work is not as much fun as it used to be. Good luck.

Used the cotter pin method many times! Works perfectly.

I replaced the main and rod bearings last year and also the lower part of the rear seal since at the time I didn't have a tool to remove the upper portion and figured the seal was OK since it didn't leak very much. I hade loosened all of the main bolts in an attempt to get the crank a bit lower but it didn't seem to helps so I left the upper portion of the seal alone. I did use the "T" cotter pin method to roll out the old bearings though and it worked great.I guess I will the Sneaky Pete a try and see how it goes.