Rear Main seal replacement

I was finally tired of pouring 1 qt of oil through my engine and onto the street every week so I decided it was time to tackle the rear main seal that has been the major cause of my oil leak problems. I did not take pictures because as you can imagine this job is super messy, too messy to take pictures. I am not going to go into extreme boring detail as to how the process went but I will include some pointers for anyone who might attempt a similar project. The seal is actually in 6 pieces, 2 pieces that go around the crank and 2 straight pieces that are located on both sides of the mounting blocks and 2 "nails" that go behind the straight seals.
Here's the tips:
1. GET AN IMPACT WRENCH! If you don't have one buy one-borrow one-steal one! I used an 18" breaker bar but I am not kidding the bolts that hold on the crank are tough! I am a pretty big boy and it was all I could do with the cramped spaces and oil all over the place to get the bolts to break loose. An impact would have saved me sore muscles and tons of time
2. The half of the seal that goes above the crank can easily be removed without pulling the tranny if you loosen each bolt that holds the crank shaft in place -I said loosen not remove- you can rotate the old half of seal out and insert a oiled up new one in its place. To remove the old one I began by screwing a drywall screw into the seal and yanking on it with some pliers to get it out enough to get pliers on it.
3.Disposable gloves are amazing! the ability to shed off greasy nasty gloves when you need to grip something clean or grab the phone or whatever is awesome! It keeps you under the hood working instead of running to the sink to wash your hands.
4. Buy a complete gasket kit for older engines. I could have spent nearly 50 bucks on just the seals I needed but found the complete Fel-Pro gasket kit was only 65 bucks and it includes every seal for the engine. Which was handy when I replaced the thermostat and forgot that I needed a new seal to re-mount the thermostat housing. Good thing I had the complete kit!
5. Clean mating surfaces of gaskets well. Old cork seal chunks or globs of nasty silicone sealant can cause leaks. It also helps detect any imperfections in the mating surface, scratches, dents or cracks.
6. Plan well, gather tools and parts and enough time to complete the job before you start.

cheers, chuck