1990 5.7L Cooling ReVamp

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Brady

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1990 K1500 RCLB 350/5spd

I'm replacing my radiator, water pump, & clutch fan, and upon tear down I saw what looks to be a bad seal. I am an engine novice, so please forgive me. But this is in the crank & timing chain cover area, under the water pump area. Is this a pita to change? Needs fixed right? This motor runs strong but is a leaky *******. (If you zoom in on bottom pic you can see chunks of it are gone.)
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Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Edit: I have no internet so I'm kind of limited to this phone for research. Sucks.
 
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98_k1500

strange noises are normal
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Thats not a seal you are looking at, Its the rubber in the harmonic balancer. Appears to have a front crankshaft seal leaking. You have to have a balancer puller to get to the seal. If it is the timing cover leaking and not just the seal, the oil pan has to come off to put a timing cover gasket on it (it can be done without dropping the oil pan, but requires carefully cutting a lip off the timing cover, and its asking for it to leak again) Best advice, Pull the balancer and see if its heavily grooved where the seal runs on it. If its bad, would probably just buy one and a new seal vs doing a sleeve and seal kit on yours. If it looks pretty good, Shine up the seal surface with some emery cloth, put a new seal in it, and let her roll.
 

Brady

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Well after looking at it again, doesn't seem to be anything leaking out around it so I'm not going to mess with it. I could see myself creating a problem out of nothing. So I got the radiator in, but didn't pickup the studs for the water pump pulley so gotta get that tomorrow.

Next question is, the new radiator has 2 outlets for a transmission cooler along the side in the tank. Mine does not. Do I need to plug those with a brass cap? Auto parts store said all the radiators are like that and that I do not need to do anything with them. Just seems to me that they're open and coolant would flow out?
 
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