Oil pan help

[hubdawg]

Have a 70 302 that leaves an oil puddle every time I drive (not the rear main)so I pulled the pan and found a new one piece rubber gasket. The problem I see is the pan at both ends has a raised ridge and the gasket is smooth thus creating the leak. I looked at a new cork gasket that had separate end pieces and they were the same smooth back. Is this a special pan ?

 

[savage]

The end gaskets on a cork gasket are smooth like that. This is my old end gasket. I use a one pc gasket now and it doesn't leak, you have to make sure your oil pan edges are straight and flat, take a straight edge to make sure they aren't bent. I still put sealer at all four corners.

 

[hubdawg]

The ridge on the crank ends in my picture are the problem as I don't see how a smooth bottom of the seal will seat on that ridge that is pictured

 

[savage]

The ridge pushes up on the end seal, if your pan edges are not flat it may not be pushing up on the end seal which will cause a leak, in the first two pics the end seals were smooth and flat and you can see how the ridge on the pan made a end dent on the seal when its screwed on.

 

[hubdawg]

I don't see the ridge on your pan ends are they smooth?

 

[savage]

They were smooth, the ridge on the pan , pushing into the end seals and that's how it seals, after the pan has been on it for years it leaves a ridge in the end seals.

 

[blubuckaroo]

Some have run into fit issues from using the wrong gasket and/or pan on their engine.
The gaskets for a 302 are different from the gasket for a 5.0.
http://www.summitracing.com/compare

 

[72Sport]

Have a 70 302 that leaves an oil puddle every time I drive (not the rear main)so I pulled the pan and found a new one piece rubber gasket. The problem I see is the pan at both ends has a raised ridge and the gasket is smooth thus creating the leak. I looked at a new cork gasket that had separate end pieces and they were the same smooth back. Is this a special pan ?

The ridge height is critical. I have a late 72 302 with the slip in dip stick. My Bronco came with an early pan according to the suffix on the part #. The early pan had either ab or ba for a suffix. I purchased a used one from Tasker which had D? or something later in the alphabet than BA. The BA pan leaked. The later pan had ridges about .030 higher than the early one. It does not leak. I think they changed pan design to screw in 73. I can only assume that Ford emptied out their warehouse of the old stuff before the production of 72 ended.

I tossed the early pan or I would measure the height of the ridge. Maybe someone can get a caliper and measure a later pan. You must have an early one on yours. The low sealing ridge might be your problem.

 

[Ourobos]

Those ridges go up between the block and the main caps, aligning the ends of the gasket. They have nothing to do with the pan itself. I've build about 150 small blocks, and every block I've used from 69 to 2000 has those provisions. The one piece rubber gasket is far superior to the cork IMHO. Now, if the engine was rebuilt lately, and someone put RTV under the corners or the main caps before torquing it down, which is a common practice, perhaps some of the RTV is blocking the gasket from slipping fully into the grooves.