Oil pan gasket

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Hi Doug. As mentioned by someone in an earlier post, there are surfaces other than the oil pan gasket that could be leaking at the rear of the engine.

Here is a photo of the rear main bearing saddle in an engine crankcase. Note the two flat surfaces from the bearing saddle down to the oil pan gasket surface.

The main bearing cap has the matching shape, and the cap usually has a shallow groove in the flats that holds a strip of felt to act as a seal.

These two flats, as well as the rear main bearing could be the source of your leak. I’d suggest taking the lower cover off the bell housing and looking between the flywheel and the back of the engine block. IF you see oil leaking from the blat surfaces or from the crankshaft where it exits the crankcase, I’d address thes items before putting a new gasket for the forward cylinders.

Greg Long

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I will look Greg, I know I did not put any felt in that area. That could be the problem as when I did the rebuild all my info. Came over the phone. Thanks again, Doug Vogel

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Hi Doug, I can’t locate the box with all the main-bearing caps. The rear main might or might not have a felt strip inset into the sides of the machined flat surfaces. There definitely needs to be some sort of seal to stop the engine oil from weeping through the gap.

Greg

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The gasket material I mentioned earlier is a rubber-cork composition.

A web site atlanticgasket.com has some basic tech info.

Cork works fine and of course has been used for many years.

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