To confirm this, could you have a rockwell hardness test performed on the old seals?  It sure would be nice to know if the Hurley seals are defective.  Good luck with the new engine.

Mark S.   

Hi Mark,

If you want to do that test, I'll send you one of my (not very) old Hurley's, and even a stock Mazda seal for comparison.  Just drop me a mailing address offlist if you want to do this.

Cheers,

Rusty (more future project turmoil)