Oil pan gasket installed. No leak so far!
05-12-2018, 03:50 AM
#1
Three Wheelin'
Thread Starter
Oil pan gasket installed. No leak so far!
Posting this for those who will be going thru a pan gasket install. I decided to use a tip by Mike Lindsey (Thanx Mike!) to use Lacquer thinner first.
1. So, you need to get Lacquer thinner-just a small can. I purchased mine at Lowes. Get a towel and pour some thinner on it, take your gasket and wipe off both mating sides with the thinner, go around and around, wear gloves. You will notice the gasket now is tacky and sticky where you cleaned off the oils that was used in the moulding to peel the gasket off when in was made. This is what you want. NO slippery oil residue! Now your gasket is tacky and sticky......
2. It goes without saying you must really clean the oil pan gasket surface and the engine gasket surface. When you think its nice and clean, get some Acetone (not the Lacquer) and paper towels and clean off all oil residue from the oil PAN gasket surface and its mating surface on the engine block. Acetone will finish stripping all small amounts of oil residue which may be on these surfaces. I didn't try to use acetone to perform step 1 above because its been recommended to use Lacquer, not acetone.
3. Apply Permatex Gray sealer (the one everyone uses) to all four corners, both mating surfaces, about two inches out from the vertex (bend) of each corner (so each corner will have a total of 4 inches of Permatex)
4. Take a sharpie permanent marker and label each hole on the oil pan so you can see the numbers when you are looking up at it during the tightening sequence, there are 22 total holes. Label the tightening sequence so that you can just look up and the tightening sequence will be there for you. On the rear of the pan you will loose those numbers because they are too deep and you won't see them, so mark the corners with the appropriate number. Refer to the common image on torque sequence
5. This is a very important step: Hand tighten each bolt a little at a time. You will need to get a feel for this, you want to just introduce each mating surface without actually "pinching" the gasket yet. When you have gone thru the correct sequence the pan gasket will be touching the entire surface all around, some of the Permatex gray seal will be ever so lightly evident at the outside perimeter. Now, clean up, have a beer, let it set for 24 hours, you can work on something else or ?? The gray Permatex will have set in in 24 hours and it holds tight at the corners!
6. After 24hrs, I decided to torque each bolt one pound at a time. I know the manual says hand torque-3lbs-7lbs, but If you think about it thats too much squishing of the gasket at one time. It would be great if we had a setup where 22 torque wrenches were able to slowly screw the pan at the same time, this would cause the pan to evenly go up and so there will be no extrusion of one side over the other. But since we can only do one bolt at a time, we must do it gently. Go one lbs in sequence. when you are done, go back to first bolt at two lbs and so on until you finish at the 7lbs. It would seem that the gasket just keeps loosening because when you go back to the first bolt after tightening the last bolt (bolt #22), the first bolt will be loose again. Expect this, but I will tell you the gasket will compress quite a bit and eventually keeping the final torque all the way around. When you are done, you will notice a STRAIGHT gasket all around without bulges anywhere. Quite satisfying! You will notice the tacky sticky gasket up against the clean metal surface is like a tennis shoe against a clean, dry basketball court floor (Lots of static friction, lots of traction!).
Thank you all who have answered some of my many questions on this project. I'll likely have more to come in other areas :-)
Jaime
1. So, you need to get Lacquer thinner-just a small can. I purchased mine at Lowes. Get a towel and pour some thinner on it, take your gasket and wipe off both mating sides with the thinner, go around and around, wear gloves. You will notice the gasket now is tacky and sticky where you cleaned off the oils that was used in the moulding to peel the gasket off when in was made. This is what you want. NO slippery oil residue! Now your gasket is tacky and sticky......
2. It goes without saying you must really clean the oil pan gasket surface and the engine gasket surface. When you think its nice and clean, get some Acetone (not the Lacquer) and paper towels and clean off all oil residue from the oil PAN gasket surface and its mating surface on the engine block. Acetone will finish stripping all small amounts of oil residue which may be on these surfaces. I didn't try to use acetone to perform step 1 above because its been recommended to use Lacquer, not acetone.
3. Apply Permatex Gray sealer (the one everyone uses) to all four corners, both mating surfaces, about two inches out from the vertex (bend) of each corner (so each corner will have a total of 4 inches of Permatex)
4. Take a sharpie permanent marker and label each hole on the oil pan so you can see the numbers when you are looking up at it during the tightening sequence, there are 22 total holes. Label the tightening sequence so that you can just look up and the tightening sequence will be there for you. On the rear of the pan you will loose those numbers because they are too deep and you won't see them, so mark the corners with the appropriate number. Refer to the common image on torque sequence
5. This is a very important step: Hand tighten each bolt a little at a time. You will need to get a feel for this, you want to just introduce each mating surface without actually "pinching" the gasket yet. When you have gone thru the correct sequence the pan gasket will be touching the entire surface all around, some of the Permatex gray seal will be ever so lightly evident at the outside perimeter. Now, clean up, have a beer, let it set for 24 hours, you can work on something else or ?? The gray Permatex will have set in in 24 hours and it holds tight at the corners!
6. After 24hrs, I decided to torque each bolt one pound at a time. I know the manual says hand torque-3lbs-7lbs, but If you think about it thats too much squishing of the gasket at one time. It would be great if we had a setup where 22 torque wrenches were able to slowly screw the pan at the same time, this would cause the pan to evenly go up and so there will be no extrusion of one side over the other. But since we can only do one bolt at a time, we must do it gently. Go one lbs in sequence. when you are done, go back to first bolt at two lbs and so on until you finish at the 7lbs. It would seem that the gasket just keeps loosening because when you go back to the first bolt after tightening the last bolt (bolt #22), the first bolt will be loose again. Expect this, but I will tell you the gasket will compress quite a bit and eventually keeping the final torque all the way around. When you are done, you will notice a STRAIGHT gasket all around without bulges anywhere. Quite satisfying! You will notice the tacky sticky gasket up against the clean metal surface is like a tennis shoe against a clean, dry basketball court floor (Lots of static friction, lots of traction!).
Thank you all who have answered some of my many questions on this project. I'll likely have more to come in other areas :-)
Jaime
Last edited by ttAmerica RoadsterAWD; 05-12-2018 at 04:06 AM. Reason: more info
05-12-2018, 12:06 PM
#4
Three Wheelin'
Good advice! I think the gradual tightening is key. That's how I did mine - I just felt the 2 stage process wasn't gradual enough. I also took the time to make sure every thread was clean and in perfect shape (bolt and hole) so I knew I'd have equal clamping on each one for a given torque. It takes lot of patience to do it right.