You wouldn't be the only person out there with a rear main seal leak. My wife's 95 has 48K on it and is leaking like it's been shot. The Volvo service manual states not to disconnect the lines at the flame trap housing because if you don't install the trap and hoses back in the proper position you may interfere with the throttle cable. Look closely and you'll see the point. As far as the seal goes, Volvo has a dealer service bulletin on the seal and also informes all dealers to install new bolts for the crankshaft/flywheel. As I understand it the bolts have a thread locking compound that seals the oil gallery. This makes sense because our car is leaking on the back side of the flexplate where the boltheads would be, and not on the front side where you would expect the seal to leak. I haven't confirmed this with a second opinion from a service mananger yet, but after looking at the manuals I feel almost sure the bolt holes in the crank are drilled completely through to the oil gallery. Our car leaks some at idle, but will fill the garage floor in 5 minutes flat at 2,500 rpm. In typical Volvo fashion they seem to be letting you and I pay for the bolts, seals and labor rather than admiting they have a problem in the form of a recall. I've had one dealer a few hours away tell me they've performed several of this costly operations. Just wait until the evaporator leaks; another service bulletin, but no recall. You can simply check to see if the crankcase is getting pressurized by holding the car on a fast idle above 2K and pulling the dipstick to see if there is pressure. Not likely.
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