I-5 motor: Gasket sealer or forget about it???

[Huw Powell]

While I don't think there is any blanket rule one can apply to this 
question in general, it's more a matter of the experience people have 
with various motors and what they need to seal them up properly, in all 
my experience no extra sealing beyond clean parts, new gaskets, and 
proper torquing is required on the Audi 5 cylinder motor.

> I'm looking for some advice about using a gasket dressing or RTV on my 
> newly rebuilt engine block. I know there's no need to put anything on 
> the head gasket, but my concern is for the oil pan gasket, front oil 
> pump gasket and the valve cover gasket.

I've been all of those places, no leaks with simple clean installation.

Wait a minute, I've been 'everywhere,' Brendan and I once rebuilt a 2.3 
pretty much from scratch.

> BTW, I'm using the windage tray 
> so I have 2 oil pan gaskets... don't know if that makes much difference 
> wrt gasket dressing. 

Btdt 3 times personally, no leaks to speak of.

> I'm just wondering if the gasket  dressing would be 
> useful for these areas or actually cause more harm than good.

When I was just a runty punk I used to slather RTV on radiator hose 
flanges.  As the years went by I thought about how excess goop could 
clog up the engine... and stopped.

The most common source of engine covering nasty goo in my experience is 
leaking cam cover gaskets.  I think this is because the torque 
requirement is very low, and many might get over-torqued when what they 
really needed was a new gasket.  Both my 5 cyls, one with about 300k and 
the other about 260k or so are completely oil-leak free, with any gasket 
replacement done with no extra ingredients.

-- 
Huw Powell

http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi

http://www.humanthoughts.org/