Did I buy the wrong oil seals?

[Dan Forsh]

I recently posted a thread on which I received a lot of very useful info from you guys regarding buying generic crank bearings rather than paying the extortionate prices Stihl want to charge me.

I shopped around a bit and taking the advice I got here bought named bearing rather than "ten a penny" ones.

I ended up buying FAG bearings from an online shop which also sold oil seals. I checked the oil seal sizes I wanted and found that they could also provide these at a good price so figured I'd try them.

I wasn't sure based on the information provided that these were exactly what I needed, so only bought one of each size I was after. About the same time I also bought one of those aftermarket blister pack of gaskets and oil seals.

So I now have both and the aftermarket look exactly like the ones I've removed, steel outer with a rubber inner and upper and lower sealing lips. The ones I bought on spec seem to be all rubber (nitrile) and only have a sealing lip on the inboard side.

Sorry about the picture quality, either my camera is crap or I'm a crap photographer.

Will they do, or should I just toss them?

The generic ones are described as "Nitrile rubber oil seal with one contact sealing face (Type R21)"

 

[Lakeside53]

The extra sealing lip is nice... and you can buy "generics' with both. There are only a handful of seals used on Stihl saws that you cannot buy on the open market, but I usually buy the entire OEM gasket kit just to get the seals.


You likely won't notice any difference - the difference will show up after many hundred of hours of normal use, or maybe less if use in dirty conditions. In other words, it's a lifetime issue.