Changing Oil Pan Gaskets -
After fighting oil pan leaks on my TR3 for a long time I decided to
change the oil pan gasket again. It seems like when you are trying to
thread the bolts through the pan and into the block that the whole thing
is sliding around and it is hard to line the bolts up with the holes in
the block and the gasket and the gasket sealant smears where you don't
want it to. I decided to make temporary studs to thread into the block
by hand out of 2 inch 5/16-18 all-thread bolts (cutting off the heads).
This way, all I had to do was line up the pan with the new studs and
thread a nut on a few turns to hold it in place. This made it easy t! o
line up all of the other bolt holes. When the whole thing was almost
ready to snug down I unthreaded the studs and put in the proper bolts.
Another anomaly of my oil pan was that the oil was dripping out around
the pan bolts themselves. Previously, I had carefully hammered the pan
flat where it had been deformed by someone over tightening in the past
and used plenty of sealant on the gasket, but this didn't help. My
solution was to carefully seal up the new pan gasket with Permatex #2
and also put some on the bolt threads themselves (near the head). When I
snugged it down there was some sealant oozing out under the bolt head
and lock washer. Presto! No more leakage. It worked for me.
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