/5 oil pan gasket or sealant??

[robertklee]

I'm about to take off my oil pan and clean old gasket mess. Which is better to replace it with-gasket or sealant???

[PGlaves]

I'm about to take off my oil pan and clean old gasket mess. Which is better to replace it with-gasket or sealant???

Gasket.

[robsryder]

Some advocate the paper BMW gasket with the pan and engine surfaces being clean and true. Flatness of the pan can be checked with a piece of plate glass. No sealant is needed.

The bolts should be tightened in a criss-cross pattern. I like to torque the bolts in 1/3 intervals, i.e, 2 ft-lbs, 4 ft-lbs, and finally 5 ft-lbs. If a bolt is stripped, then a heli-coil should be emplaced before positioning the pan and gasket. I think that it was Matt Parkhouse that recommended tightening slightly (e.g. set torque wrench to a hair over 5 ft-lbs) to determine if or which bolts were stripped before removal of the pan.

Personally, I'm replacing all of my paper pan gaskets with the silicone ones from Rocky Point Cycle. The recommended torque values for pan bolts with the silicone gasket is about 3 ft-lbs. One should use the appropriately sensitive torque wrench (or about a pinkie's worth of force about 2 inches out on the wrench). Same deal on having the surfaces being clean and true. The silicone gasket needs to be de-oiled (i.e., rinse with brake cleaner) prior to each use.

http://www.rockypointcycle.com/Merch...egory_Code=B10

[rpeckham136133]

Gasket, definitely.

I have had excellent results with the silicone gaskets. See if you can find one in grey, rather than the red.... blends in better....

[keelerb]

Dunno if this is as important with silicone gaskets, but the key for most is the retorquing - ideally after one heat cycle and then again after a hundred, a couple hundred, and five hundred miles (and thereafter if the last one shows any movement at all).

[47512]

Get your self a inch pound torque wrench for those 6mm bolts, less chance of striping with a smaller tool. A inch pound wrench will be more accurate at those small torque settings than a ft. lb. torque wrench. Matt Parkhouse is right on about tightening the pan bolts to spec. before removing the pan, then if you pull the threads out it's alot easyer to install a Heli coil, or threadsert with the pan off and everything cleaned up. I have rebuilt several old BMW engines, and I like to replace all of the old 6mm threads with Heli coils, or threadserts as then there are no more probblems. Over the years I have rebuilt more British motorcycle engines than I care to count with pulled threads, now when I do one just about every hole 5/16, or 8mm and smaller gets a Heli coil or threadsert, 99% of the time it will not pull again, and there are less chance of leaks.

Ken G.