tgilligan

Hey,
Had several leaks on my TH350 from the kick down, dipstick tube and the speedo housing. Replaced all those including the pan and gasket as I wanted to have a pan with a drain plug. Picked up one from Summit and all has been great for about 2 weeks and no leaks. Today I noticed a small leak around the pan bolts and gasket edge. Picked up the dye color with my UV light from the dye I added when I filled the trans back up.

Is it possible that the pan bolts need to be re-torqued after i put the new pan and gasket in? Any other things I should be aware of? I made sure the mating surface was spotless and no rough spots. I used the Fel-Pro gasket and also made sure the surface of the new pan from Summit was flat and free of any damages. Thought I had this completely fixed and noticed a few drops after 2 weeks of a dry garage floor. Any advice?

matt69olds

It wouldn’t hurt to retorque the bolts. Did you make sure the pan flange was flat? A little time with a couple of pieces of scrap steel and a hammer will flatten out any distorted pan rails

tgilligan

I did use a straight edge to try and make sure it wasn’t warped and didn’t notice anything out of whack. It seems to be leaking from the right side and right front corner so maybe that piece was just a tiny bit off. I’ll try and retorque and see if that stops. If not I’ll drop it and try to work it. At least with the plug now I won’t be wasting new clean fluid.

oldcutlass

You might go around the pan and give all the bolts 1/4 turn.

boese1978

Double check the cooling lines too, mine had a minor leak from there and it would run down and gather on the pan lip and bolts making it appear that pan was the source.

tgilligan

But if an update. Bonehead move on my part as I bought a new gasket (Moroso 93102) which is a thick rubber steep core gasket. In my haste, I have a stamped steel aftermarket pan and torqued to 13ft lbs but that’s the factory spec and that was stuck in my head. Obviously the first bolt warped the pan and I decided to start from scratch. This time I have a cast aluminum pan and will be using a new Moroso gasket. What torque is a safe place to start with a cast aluminum pan and this type of gasket? 8-10?

matt69olds

With a cast pan and the thick Moroso gasket, I would think 10-12 lbs-ft would be good. The factory spec is 120 inch-pounds, that’s 10 lbs-ft. Unless the pan has a different spec that’s what I would go with.

tgilligan

Thanks, I’ll give it a shot. I think I’ll also pick up a torque wrench that’ll do inch pounds as my torque wrench has markings for as low as 10 but I really don’t think it works unless it’s 20 or greater based on when it clicked for this pan.

RetroRanger

Something like that i like to tighten in stages, go around till their all finger tight, then hand tight then torque to spec

Sugar Bear

Double check that a leak on the RF corner isn't cooler lines as mentioned, the detent cable or the oil fill tube. It may be the pan as you stated but the other three places are areas prone to leaks and are just above the RF corner.

Good luck!!!