Oil Pump Gasket - Yes or No?
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Re: Oil Pump Gasket - Yes or No?
you mean someone actually makes a gasket for this? not needed - or to my knowledge, designed for one.
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Re: Oil Pump Gasket - Yes or No?
Yes there are gaskets available. They come in some whole-engine gasket sets.
No they are not "original" to the design; nor "required", nor IMPO, desirable. My personal preference is to put a very thin (strong emphasis on THIN followed by VERY) schmeer of sumkinda ultra RTV on the surfaces. But even that is not "necessary"; only, a potential very minor improvement to the metal-to-metal junction.
More important to me is, using the correct oil pump bolt. It's some completely oddball length; 1-15/16" or some such. It's arbitrarily nearly identical to some one of the other bolts in a SBC which is 2" (the short head bolt maybe?), and therefore often gets confused during a tear-down. BUTT... if it's too long, it presses on the back of the rear main bearing, and creates a characteristic wear pattern.
If you know what you're looking at it JUMPS OFF OF the inspection of failed main bearings.
Of course if the OP bolt is too SHORT, you can eeeeeezily strip out the threads in the main cap, due to insufficient thread engagement. Butt that can only happen if you're trying to use hardware-store bolts or something. The most likely error is, to put a 2" bolt - TOO LONG - in its place, and create what's in that photo.
It's important to get the bolt choice right. IMO bolt torque is not critical at all; anything from 40 to 60 or so is OK, with 45 - 50 being the ideal range, since there's no gasket, and no parts that can "bend". Like so many other things, OVERtorquing is more dangerous than UNDER, since too much force can distort the main bearing cap. As long as it's enough torque not to fall off, and not so much that it affects the bearing, then it's just fine.
No they are not "original" to the design; nor "required", nor IMPO, desirable. My personal preference is to put a very thin (strong emphasis on THIN followed by VERY) schmeer of sumkinda ultra RTV on the surfaces. But even that is not "necessary"; only, a potential very minor improvement to the metal-to-metal junction.
More important to me is, using the correct oil pump bolt. It's some completely oddball length; 1-15/16" or some such. It's arbitrarily nearly identical to some one of the other bolts in a SBC which is 2" (the short head bolt maybe?), and therefore often gets confused during a tear-down. BUTT... if it's too long, it presses on the back of the rear main bearing, and creates a characteristic wear pattern.
If you know what you're looking at it JUMPS OFF OF the inspection of failed main bearings.
Of course if the OP bolt is too SHORT, you can eeeeeezily strip out the threads in the main cap, due to insufficient thread engagement. Butt that can only happen if you're trying to use hardware-store bolts or something. The most likely error is, to put a 2" bolt - TOO LONG - in its place, and create what's in that photo.
It's important to get the bolt choice right. IMO bolt torque is not critical at all; anything from 40 to 60 or so is OK, with 45 - 50 being the ideal range, since there's no gasket, and no parts that can "bend". Like so many other things, OVERtorquing is more dangerous than UNDER, since too much force can distort the main bearing cap. As long as it's enough torque not to fall off, and not so much that it affects the bearing, then it's just fine.
Last edited by sofakingdom; Feb 27, 2020 at 07:02 PM.
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