Rick H. wrote: After reading 79 pages of information on gasket sealers for the KZ-1000 oil pan my eyes are wacky. It seems that there is a bit of disagreement on when or when not to use gasket sealers on almost every gasket in a Z/KZ engine, but the one I am concerned about right now is the oil pan. I decided to take it off to quell my suspicion of parts and pieces laying in the bottom of the pan so off she came yesterday. No big deal really as the exhaust is off already, but the gasket removal is a real beotch! Been working on this for a good 4 hours and only have about 2/3 rds of the block finished. The pan is sitting in my parts tank soaking. No parts to speak of in the pan, but there was an incredible amount of sludge in it. I haven't seen that much sludge since working on Ford big block pig motors back in the 70's. I wondered why my fresh oil looked so dirty after only running it about 50 miles, now I know.
Anyway, I would like to install the pan and gasket in the best manner using a sealer, or not, that allows easier removal and surface cleaning. Does anyone have any recommendations for me? I read in my forum search and several people suggested something called Hylomar, but I don't know what it is, nor have I ever seen it. Are there different types of Hylomar for various applications? Years back we used to coat gaskets that we wanted to reuse with a very thin coat of bearing grease, but I don't know about doing that on the oil pan. Thanks as always. Oh, here is a pic of the inside of my oil pan.
Rick H.
I'll take a guess at the sludge, somebody used a lot of graphite grease during assembly, that stuff doesn't drain well. As for gaskets, if the surfaces are clean (no scratches) I don't use sealant.