I was in a post about gaskets when I remembered I needed to pass on some information on the rear crankshaft seal.

I have posted about seal materials and a discrepancy between seal and crankshaft size problem before. The Elring orange silicon seal with an I.D of 93mm and a crankshaft size of 92mm.

Elring also makes a black seal with the same O.D. and I.D. but only 7mm thick.
I know about this because I was told it was better than silicone. I have one of these because of being told it was neoprene or Viton. I don’t know which the black one is made of. I was into trusting my discount parts people. It turns out it’s probably made of standard neoprene. My fault is, I got caught up in “What is supposed to better, than?”

It then turns out that they both are also one millimeter to large on their inside diameter than what a crankshaft measures. It’s molded right into the material. That is not right. That’s their fault.

The black one did come with a plastic internal ring that makes both easier to install when lubed up. Since their bigger it made it too easy. I had to go ahead and put it in because there you are, do you or don’t you.
That's when I felt I got all this slipped to me! It weeps just a little on that car today.


I located a Timken Seal that is identical to the Volvo one made of silicon rubber except it has the stock numbers that are molded on them. Like normal seals and bearings.

The Timken Box Number is 355660H.
There is a Molded Number is a National L355660H. It is probably a re box to Timken.
Maybe, merged like Chicago Rawhide (CR seals) which is now owned by SKF.

Elring of North America is supplying the closest metric seal they can get to their supply system, probably from Europe. That 92mm size is lost in their books too!
A Viton seal material was not available in this size at all, to best of my information.

You can get this seal from APPLIED Industrial Technologies or from Rock Auto.com.
I found the latter, by using Google, with the part number.

They run the same price of $9.50 ea. If A.I.T. has them in stock you might save the shipping. That was 5.95 in my case. I bought two since they had to come from Reno Nevada.

I thought it was worth it because the guy and I were really working the books to locate the seal. I could not believe this was exclusive to Volvo this many years, though it is possible to conveniently leave the numbers off.

Converting the dimensions and looking closely at them, is how we found out that there is a metric gap in the numerical sequence within the range of nominal sizes.


No doubt here, Volvo can jack the price up to those not knowing.
I have read that some dealers get over $20 for them on shop service sheets. I haven’t bought much from Volvo over the years. I don’t have to wonder why!

Hope the number helps someone. In the case you are doing an order with someone who works with you, as my good old buddies at APPLIED Technologies. They were formerly the King and Dixie Bearing Companies.

A Young Man, I used to BE!
Phil