A thing was done

"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich)
08/03/2020 at 18:11 • Filed to: None

I finally got the courage to change the Civic’s oil pan gasket.

This is what the bottom end looks like after 290,000+ km. Not as clean as I’d like, but not horrific, as far as I know.

It took a while to do it, but for the most part, things went fairly well. The process involves removing the exhaust pipe, removing two brackets, disconnecting the shift linkage, removing a metal panel, then actually removing the oil pan. I’m waiting ~24 hours before I refill it with oil, as per the Permatex Black instructions. The original oil pan gasket had some sort of gasket maker material on it (Honda-bond?) in four places, so I did the same thing putting the new one back in. Permatex Black says to wait 1 hour after applying, then torque things down to spec, then wait 24 hours before exposing to fluids. I really hope it holds and doesn’t leak. Although while I was under there, it looks like my crank seal is also on its way out. I think I’ll let the shop handle that when they do the timing belt, since they’ll already be mucking around in there.

Part of the motivation for doing the oil pan gasket is so I’m not as embarrassed when I take the car in for the other work it needs (timing belt, tensioner, water pump, and now a crank gasket). Things down there had been leaking for quite a while, and there was a thick layer of oil and dirt over everything. At least things are a lot cleaner now.

DISCUSSION (8)

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/03/2020 at 18:24

Shout out to Hondabond. Possibly the best bond.

Represent.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja:
08/03/2020 at 18:31

Well, the stuff I scraped off was pretty stiff and brittle. But it was also 19 years old.

shop-teacher > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/03/2020 at 19:09

That's not bad at all.

RacinBob > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/03/2020 at 19:44

A word of caution, it is very easy to snap off the Honda 10mm head oil pan bolts. I believe their spec is 10 foot pounds which is not much. After snapping several on my race car, I learned to grab the socket wrench at the center and rotate with my wrist until snug. Work your way around the pan and do a bit at the time. Whatever d o not grab the end of the handle and pull hard, they are easy to snap.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > RacinBob
08/03/2020 at 19:48

Good advice. Thankfully everything went together without much issue.

RacinBob > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/03/2020 at 19:50

Yep, you crank them down nice and tight and it is about the most disappointing feeling you can have when one snaps.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > RacinBob
08/03/2020 at 21:13

Ugh. That has to be abs olutely heartbreaking. I’m not even sure what I would do if that happened.

I was really fortunate today. The only thing that gave me some grief was getting the new exhaust gasket - getting it seated properly. It’s such an odd design. I really would be curious to hear the engineers explain some of their design decisions. Same with the odd little metal piece that goes around the transmission linkage. Rather than using a castle nut and cotter c otter pin, it uses some odd little piece of folded metal.

MiniGTI - now with XJ6 > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/04/2020 at 00:17

Yeah I put a new valve cover gasket on my SAAB. That has torx screws spec’d at 10 also. My torque wrench doesn’t even go that low, so I just lightly snugged them with my smallest wrench. No leaks!

I turned cleaning the oil pan over to a SAAB mechanic I found, it looked too scary for me. Good thing too, he said he snapped one of the exhaust studs and had to drill it out.