My engine oil pan is weeping a little. I have the car raised up at the moment so am thinking about tightening up the bolts. I've read a few post but am confused about what the correct torque should be and some suggest just snugging the bolt up a little being careful not to over do it. Any ideas?

 

IIRC, 5FtLbs.

 

The problem is the torque is very low (I think 8Nm max), which is couple of fingers pressure at end of short wrench. If you overtighten the gasket gets squeezed out more and leaks more.

I would just snug up any bolts which are loose - they tend to work their way out of the pan. Just snug them up then a fraction more. The bolts at the front are hard to get at but a flexible head gear wrench is tool of choice. But before risking gasket squeeze with over-tightening just work round all the bolts with your fingers and identify any that have worked loose.

If gasket is old it will have hardened and oil will wick through it, regardless of correctly tightened bolts. In that case new gasket is best option.

 

I had pan weep also. I pulled each bolt recently, cleaned well, cleaned the threads, put loctite on the bolt, and a star washer and ran them up to 6ftlbs. looks very dry so far.
jp 83 Euro S AT 56k

 

Thanks guys. I'll probably follow the advice to check for loose ones. The I'm not losing any significant amount of oil so don't want to make it worse, so I'll go carefully. It's the original gasket I think so probably see a new gasket and motor mount job in my future at some point

Mike

 

In retrospect, I should have just snugged up the bolts on mine - it did no more than weep a drip or two, and quite a few bolts were very loose. The gasket looked pristine. I think it would have lasted another 28 years provided I was able to tighten the bolts with the required delicacy and even-ness. It remains to be seen if I did this properly with the new silicone gasket - I'm hoping its greater squishiness means it has greater tolerance to uneven bolt loads (again, provided the ham-fisted mechanic adopts a watchmaker's delicacy).

 

Mine was also leaking and I found that more then 4 bolts were soo loose I had to do a full ratchet turn on some of them with my torque wrench. After I used my torque wrench on the bolts I could access no more drips. Good luck