Removing flywheel key

[biff]

hi stephen,
      sorry to hear you are having a spot of bother with the oil seal,i suspect that the flywheel would have been heated and then fitted during the origional assembly, (an exellent method).the woodruff keys are always made of soft steel and will be easy to drill out in three runs,once you drill it a few times the heat will expand it and after it cools it should come out easy,i believe you will have to get used to a few leaks,stationary engines which sit for a few months at a time without working have a habit of shrinking and cracking the seals,(both fiber and rubber) so a little pan placed in the right spot,(out of sight)should contain the problem,years ago we used to use an additive that invigorated oil seals or O rings,the stuff actually worked, i dont know what became of it,i havnt seen it for years.
                                                       biff,

[oliver90owner]

If flywheels were needed to be heated to get them on, they would never come off - well not without a huge press.  That is how train wheels are fitted to the axles.

With regard to the leaky seal - you have not changed the oil type, by chance, to a semi- or fully-synthetic?  That might sort out a few seals as the older ones were not resistant to the newer types of oil.

One other Q:  Is the crankcase breather operational?  If not, crankcase pressure will build and the oil will leak with the gases as they escape via the easiest route....

Regards, RAB

[petertc]

To try an free it up put some coke on to it an leave to soak that will get rid of any rust that may be holding it.

possibly one thing you could do is to tap the side of the exposed face with a punch and a hammer.
hit one side an one the other not to hard as the fly wheel may be cast and you don't want to crack it.

Some times when using pullers apply some load then tap with a hammer what you are pulling. ( depending on what you are pulling some times it does need to be belted hard again this also depends on the material and also if you need to reuse it.)
I had fun and games with an old bearing on the end of a shaft on a dung spreader, we used puller heat and a sledge hammer even that did not work so we used the gas axe to gut off. ?Not really what you need thought !!!

[stephend]

Biff, I think you have it.  I ran it today again for a good hour or so and kept a close eye on the leak - miraculously it has stopped!  (or at least slowed down a LOT).  I don't run it very often so it may very well have been standing for 2 weeks when I noticed the leak.  Well that's a bloody relief 

Not sure if they heated the wheel before putting it on, I doubt it, since that sounds like far too high tech solution for an Indian company.  In the video I posted earlier on in this discussion you can see the working of the Vidhata factory where my genny was made, at 1 minute 30 in the vid you can see a chap stradling an assembly line of these engines belting them ferociously with a sledge hammer.  That must be the gib key install.

And of course today the radiator fan failed, just to keep things interesting