Oh Keepers of things old and mechanical I humbly seek your wisdom. My 62 Bel Air Wagon is still leaving it's mark and I'm sick of it. The oil pan gasket is junk - I tried to retorque it but it's an old cork one and it's smooshing out. Since this beast is an x-frame, I need to jack the motor to get the pan off. I'm going to use a fel-pro 1 piece. I put one on my SBC350 in my 31 Roadster 2 years ago (did the Rear Main seal because that one was leaking) and it's been perfect so I'll use the same one on this motor. Since my raditor is junk I'll probably replace it now too since I'll need to drain it to jack the motor. So whatcha think? First rounds on me!
Is your rear main seal leaking? are you going to drop the crank? Those are the questions that you need to be asking yourself.
I'll take a Stella on draft please! If you are lucky you'll have two of those one piece Fel Pro gaskets to seal. The one on my roadster engine didn't even survive the dyno session. If I recall they were 30 bucks many years ago. Many people have had problems with them. When you get the pan off, spend some time on the pan around all the bolt holes to get it flat again, they usually distort from years of overtightening. Also make sure someone hasn't replaced the bolts with some that are too long. Cheers.
That old 327 probably has a rope seal with a pin sticking into it from the block side. I would not try to change the block half but changing the bottom half in the cap can sometimes buy you a bit of time. I can't remember who makes them but at one time you could buy a soft, wire nail looking thing that you could drive into the block side of a rope seal to tighten it up. IIRC, one from each side of the crank would tighten it up and then you change the bottom half. I have also seen some shade-tree guys just take a punch and drive the top half up into the block and add some pieces of seal rope to fill in the space left.
I bought this car a year ago and unfortunately, I know little about the actual history of the engine. What I can say is that the block/heads have been painted and there's a chrome after market oil pain on there now so I'm guessing the motor was pulled at one point - judging by the paint quality on the engine and body - I'm going to say 15-20 years ago ? I'll make sure to get the right screw kit and flatten the holes. When I did the one on my SBC350 I had to replace the pan because that one was beaten to shit - I learned a lot about the OEM vs Aftermarket pans and that they have different gaskets. The Fel-pro one 1 piece was $30 and included the longer screws to accommodate the fatter gasket. I used a little black RTV on the front and back humps (per the install instructions included with the gasket) and haven't had an issue in 2 years/1500 miles - I don't thrash on that motor so it's possible it wouldn't be great under high RPM conditions. Dunno. That car doesn't handle well enough for me to find out
Not 100% sure if it's leaking - I'll know for sure when it get it in the air. When I changed the one on my SBC350 all I did was loosen the caps up a bit for the crank to loosen up and I was able to pretty easily remove and install the rear main seal. Then I retorqued the caps and it's been dry as a bone. The engine runs really well.
I guess I just don't want to be in a situation where I'm doing this job again in 6 months because I didn't change, but I can appreciate the art of not touching something that's not broken
I'm a world class "If it ain't broke don't fix it" guy. So I wouldn't mess with it. But, of course, six months from now it will probably start leaking and 2 months from that point you will probably have the engine out to replace or rebuild it anyway - that's what old cars are all about.
I didn't even read past your first two sentences to have an idea what may be causing your oil pan leaks, if it's one of those cheapie offshore chrome pans, there is a good chance that's your problem. You may be better off finding a good used oem pan and using it instead.
Well, I'd eventually like to put an overdrive tranny in there so it's coming out at some point anyway. but that could be 10 years from now
Noted. I know for a fact that it's not tight now because the gasket is crap. I'm not a fan of the chrome pan, but at the same time, if it holds oil, I'm inclined to keep it for now. On the other engine I used a standard black steel pan - it's been fine but agree that the OEM would be a better fit. This car is a cruiser so I don't intend on thrashing on this motor either with high RPM. I'd like to just park it and not have it leak on my clean driveway
If you are gonna change the pan gasket do as DDDenny said and find a stock pan-the chrome and other aftermarket pans sometimes have the wrong curvature at the front where the seal goes under the timing cover and will leak.
As already stated, but I must confirm (after working for Fel Pro for 30 years) the cheezy-chrome-pans are not made to SAE standards in shape or metal thickness in most cases. Milodon have been made correctly. If your going to use it, you must take a sanding disc or red scotch brite disc and remove the chrome/shiney from all gasket and seal surfaces. Then use Permatex Right Stuff as your sealer Remember .... all of the old engines leaked, and still do. Using quality gaskets, properly preparing the sealing surfaces, do not over tighten fasteners, and use Right Stuff .... your odds are good.
That's a quality tip right there! Thanks! As I mentioned early, I used that exact Black gasket maker on the front and rear of the Fel-Pro gasket as called for in the instructions and torqued to spec on my SBC350 and zero issues. That does have an aftermarket black steel oil pan from Speedway but seems to be working well. on the Chrome one - I could give a rats a$$ - because you can't see it. I'm not going to car shows a putting mirrors down. For now, I'll probably clean it up as you said and continue to use it, but should circumstances change (like after I put a new gasket in it continues to leak) then I'll swap it.
Thankfully Denny with the double Ds started it off but I was gonna recommend getting rid of the tinfoil chrome pan- they all leak. Clean and degrease the rail so the "right stuff" can adhere well. Shouldn't cost more than a few bucks to find a proper pan. As long as it's coming off you really should swap it. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Ok. Just to close this out I completed my project. Thanks for all the tips - here's what I ended finding and doing: Lift that engine is a huge pain in the ass. I had to remove the exhaust from the headers and ended up breaking a support on the pass side - so off the exhaust shop but I got it strapped temporarily. I wasn't sure how to separate the motor mount and ended up creating a bit of extra work. The damn fuel pump is in the way too - having to remove every accessory to lift the engine is a time suck. The pan was on with 3 different bolt sizes - clearly wrong. The cork gasket was toast and whoever put this in siliconed the snot out of both sides - some of the bolts were even siliconed and gunked up. Pulled it all off, cleaned it all up. Scotchbrited the block and pan lip, made sure the lip on the pan was level. I used the fel-pro 1-piece and stuck with crappy chrome pan. Mostly because it didn't leak, it was in good shape, i was being cheap and didn't want to replace a "good" pan nor just throw it away. I used the thick gasket and applied RTV as the directions indicated to the front and rear humps only between the block and gasket - let it setup before torquing and let it sit for 24 hours before putting oil in and firing it up. Torqued to spec (gasket comes complete with new bolts). Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Ran her about 20 miles and zero leaks, weeps, etc. I was nervous but happy with the result. The rear main looked good so I opted to leave well enough alone. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I cleaned up what I could on the block from an old grease and oil standpoint. I put new cork gaskets on too and I seemed to have fixed some weeping i was getting there. Thanks for all the tips. This site is a wealth of knowledge for weekend warriors like myself! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Did you check the pan to see if the gasket surface was flat? Really best done on a surface plate, I've used kitchen counters too. The bolt holes sometimes get pulled out of shape if someone gorillas the pan bolts. The fix is easy with some light hammering and a piece of wood to back it up.
I didn't. I eyeballed it and it looked pretty straight. A couple holes were puckered up and a few whacks fixed those. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Hi I have been down this road also with the chrome pan. Changed the gasket a few times and finally threw the pan out and put a normal pan on . no more leaks. On an other small block block I had years ago With a oil leak on the pan area, turned out to be the missing bolt to hold the fuel pump rod when installing the fuel pump. With small block chevy make sure the timing cover and the pan and the correct rubbers are correct as a set Regards Dave
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