Canton pan leak or rear main seal?

scr11 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-20-2002, 07:21 PM

Guys - I'm having some trouble with an oil leak from the back of my pan. I'm using a 7qt, front sump Canton pan. Instead of using the 4 piece gasket set, I used the one piece rubber/steel unit from Ford. I realize Canton recommends the 4 piece, but after talking with some folks on Corral.net, I went the route of the one piece gasket. Nonetheless, my motor has about 50 miles on it and the oil leak is more annoying than anything else.
I'm planning on dropping the pan tomorrow and re-sealing it using plenty of rtv black and the Ford one piece gasket. The question remains though, before I do anything, how can I be sure it's not the rear main seal as opposed to the oil pan?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.
Scott

p.s. I posted this in the Shop Forum too.

Cobra Dude · #2 (**permalink**) 01-20-2002, 08:09 PM

Hee hee hee ha ha ho ho!!!

Sorry -- gotta laugh, cause I had/have the same prob too, with the one piece steel/rubber gasket. The canton is notorious for this (great pan otherwise though). If you look at the corners where the "half-moons" start, you'll see they're very rounded on the pan, vs the sharp corners on the engine block. To be honest, the design was poor. The answer is simple -- gobs and gobs of silicone in the corners. You should not have any leaks on the flat sides though.

BTW, any other gasket will not solve the problem, and the one-piece gasket is an excellent unit.

Hope it helps.

mustangmendez · #3 (**permalink**) 01-20-2002, 08:35 PM

Belive it or not .....
I really hate giving our secrets out to the public but since it is just us girls if you remove the rear main bearing cap and sqease a small amount of silicon in the corners re tourqe an put a new pan gasket / rear main seal {dont forget to lube the seal, easy on the silicon I would say that should fix it ....
ps Dont tell our secret OK ????
We have done redos on 5.0s from so called machine shop workers .
Mustang Mendez

scr11 · #4 (**permalink**) 01-21-2002, 07:31 AM

Thanks for the ideas. I'm dropping the pan this morning to fix it and I'll be using more rtv sealer this time.
I'll let you guys know how it turns out.
Scott