New Oil Pan gasket leaking?

[Dustin Jackson]

Hey guys, it has been about 3,000 miles since I did the AFM delete and everything has been fine so far.

Recently I have noticed that after a good drive my Tahoe will leave 2 drops of oil on my driveway.

1 drop coming from the drain plug, I think it just needs a new drain plug gasket.

The other drop is coming from my front diff, I got under it with a flashlight and can see the oil pan is leaking front of the motor mount on the driver side. I can tell because those oil pan bolts near the front have beads of oil on them.

My oil pan gasket is a brand new felpro installed about 3,000 miles ago.

What are your guys thoughts on this? Should I just attempt to retorque the bolts or did I bend my oil pan? Maybe got a piece of gunk on the gasket when installing and it isn't seated right? Or maybe didn't use enough RTV where the block meets the front cover and the oil is traveling backwards?

Strange it went almost 3,000 miles before showing up.

 

[Trey Hardy]

I would check over the bolts again first don’t strip them but make sure they are good and tight did you cross back and fourth when you were putting it back on? Not sure if it makes a difference but seems like it would be the thing to do so everything goes on evenly so it don’t pinch the gasket or warp the pan? Just idea

 

[Trey Hardy]

Mine leaks out the rear main seal and god knows where else but it’s not bad enough yet to worry about maybe if I don’t drive as much and I stretch my oil change out I might have to add a quart between the change but here lately with the long distance driving I haven’t had too

 

[Foggy]

When the timing cover assembly was off...... if you didn't get all the surfaces perfectly
clean and then just the right amount of RTV when you reassemble it can leak..
Also, be careful NOT to over tighten those bolts.. They are pretty small...
I think when I did mine, the torque figure was like 110 in lbs Which is
just good and snug with a 1/4 drive ratchet

 

[Rocket Man]

Re-torque and follow the specs, 110 in lbs sounds about right, make sure you’re not using ft lbs or you’ll strip them for sure. Oil pan bolts always seem to loosen after first installed at least once. Same with trans pan bolts.

 

[Dustin Jackson]

When the timing cover assembly was off...... if you didn't get all the surfaces perfectly
clean and then just the right amount of RTV when you reassemble it can leak..
Also, be careful NOT to over tighten those bolts.. They are pretty small...
I think when I did mine, the torque figure was like 110 in lbs Which is
just good and snug with a 1/4 drive ratchet

@Foggy @Rocket Man I don't think I over torqued them too much, I set my ft lbs wrench to lowest setting which was like 12 or 15 ft lbs. I will retorque them and hope that they just got a little loose from expanding.

I will say that 1 of the long ones near the trans is completely missing now but this is far from my leak... lol

 

[Rocket Man]

@Foggy @Rocket Man I don't think I over torqued them too much, I set my ft lbs wrench to lowest setting which was like 12 or 15 ft lbs. I will retorque them and hope that they just got a little loose from expanding.

I will say that 1 of the long ones near the trans is completely missing now but this is far from my leak... lol

Dont torque them to either 12 or 15 lbs. because that’s 144-180 in lbs and at the bottom of the wrench’s range it’s not accurate anyway. I just checked and my 02 is supposed to be 109 in lbs or a little over 8 ft lbs. You have an aluminum block, correct? Hope you didn’t strip the one that’s missing. Buy a smaller torque wrench that does in lbs.

 

[Dustin Jackson]

Dont torque them to either 12 or 15 lbs. because that’s 144-180 in lbs and at the bottom of the wrench’s range it’s not accurate anyway. I just checked and my 02 is supposed to be 109 in lbs or a little over 8 ft lbs. You have an aluminum block, correct? Hope you didn’t strip the one that’s missing. Buy a smaller torque wrench that does in lbs.

Iron block

 

[Rocket Man]

Iron block

Hopefully they just loosened up but now I’m kind of doubting it if you torqued them that hard the first time. Won’t hurt to check though.

 

[drakon543]

might have tweeked the pan a bit. when i do an oil pan or trans pan i use rtv on the threads. rtv will generally add enough resistance on a bolt that it wont back out. green locktite should work aswell as its the lightest of them but as rtv usually works for me and your already using it so its handy.

 

[Rocket Man]

The oil pan is thick aluminum and not stamped steel like the trans pan so I doubt it was damaged unless it got cracked which would be hard to do. It’s a structural part of the engine/trans assembly so it’s strong.

 

[donjetman]

Oil pan is cast aluminum and doesn't bend, it cracks. I had an 02 Surburban with a cracked pan at the corner where the oil filter is. Previous owner over torqued it?

 

[Dustin Jackson]

@donjetman My first attempted tightening the oil pan down I found that I had the timing cover hanging down and the oil pan wasn't sitting flush to the bottom of the motor, I found that when I was trying to tighten it down. I was able to correct the timing cover and get everything lined up and had no additional drama when tightening the oil pan but we will see. I am going to order a proper in pounds wrench and give it another go, and get a new drain plug to stop that leak.

 

[Rocket Man]

Any updates @Dustin Jackson ?

 

[Dustin Jackson]

@Rocket Man Sorry I do not have an update yet. Tahoe still drives great, took it up to Mount Shasta over the weekend.

After spending a month over the Summer repairing a lifter failure in my driveway I am not looking forward to wrenching on it again so I am procrastinating a bit. Oil level looks great, I think after the AFM delete my oil consumption is much less than it was before even with this oil leak. I am about 3k into this oil change and oil looks full still.

My oil cap neck was coming loose before the afm repair and I think that was causing my motor to be sucking in dirt from the oil cap area and I put in the new valve cover design so after the rebuild the PCV system is in much better condition and probably sucking in less oil than before.

 

[Rocket Man]

@Rocket Man Sorry I do not have an update yet. Tahoe still drives great, took it up to Mount Shasta over the weekend.

After spending a month over the Summer repairing a lifter failure in my driveway I am not looking forward to wrenching on it again so I am procrastinating a bit. Oil level looks great, I think after the AFM delete my oil consumption is much less than it was before even with this oil leak. I am about 3k into this oil change and oil looks full still.

My oil cap neck was coming loose before the afm repair and I think that was causing my motor to be sucking in dirt from the oil cap area and I put in the new valve cover design so after the rebuild the PCV system is in much better condition and probably sucking in less oil than before.

I get it. It only takes a few minutes to torque those bolts especially if you have a set of ramps, though. At least check to see if they’re loose.

 

[Dustin Jackson]

I get it. It only takes a few minutes to torque those bolts especially if you have a set of ramps, though. At least check to see if they’re loose.

@Rocket Man Do you think I should go over it with my foot pound torque wrench set to the lowest setting or should I get a proper inch pound torque wrench?

 

[Rocket Man]

@Rocket Man Do you think I should go over it with my foot pound torque wrench set to the lowest setting or should I get a proper inch pound torque wrench?

Harbor Freight sells an inch pound one for cheap. I don’t know of any foot pound ones that are accurate at 8-9 ft lbs.

 

[Blackcar]

Sometimes with low foot pounds you can convert to inch pounds I have done that with motorcycle fasteners. https://www.theunitconverter.com/foot-pound-to-inch-pound-conversion/8-foot-pound-to-inch-pound.html

 

[Rocket Man]

Sometimes with low foot pounds you can convert to inch pounds I have done that with motorcycle fasteners. https://www.theunitconverter.com/foot-pound-to-inch-pound-conversion/8-foot-pound-to-inch-pound.html

Yeah 12 inch lbs=1 ft lb so it’s not hard. The specs on my oil pan are 108 in lbs, pretty sure his are around there. But he only had a torque wrench that went down to about 12-15 and he used that, set on its lowest setting so like I stated in my earlier post, that’s 144-180 in lbs or are we missing something?