Do these need to be cleaned? How clean should they be and how would you clean them? Mineral spirits? I’ll just scrape the mating surface of the sump and the block with a plastic razor? Any need to use silicone (black stuff, high oil resistance?) on the new gasket or just attach it? I think it’s a silicone gasket.

 

Gasoline in the sump, a little toothbrush on the pickup tube buggers. Get under it and get a shot up at the cam bearings to make sure none are walked. Post here when you have it.

 

Always a good idea to put a thin coat of silicone on both sides of the gasket, finger tight for 24 hrs curing, then torque.

 

I used full strength Simple Green to clean mine. Installed the new gasket dry except for the lines called out in RAVE.

good luck!

 

Mineral spirits are banned here in CA, so I've had to resort to other cleaning methods. The thing that worked best for me, and made the aluminum look brand new with no scrubbing effort on my part, is getting a storage tote at Home Depot and the two of the big (5 gallon?) jugs of simple green. Fill up the bin, let that thing soak. Pull it out after a day or two and it should look factory fresh. You can reuse that simple green many many times over before it becomes too saturated with oil to be useful.

 

Anyone compared simple green to purple power? We've got purple power in the parts washer at work and I've been unimpressed. Hate to buy 10 gallons of anything just to try for a few days.

 

Yeah, SG is much more effective than PP in the applications I've used in with at least.

And remember, 10 gallons of SG is pretty inexpensive in the context of this repair being done by a shop. Whenever I balk at the cost of parts or a project overall, it helps to remind myself how much I'm saving (not to mention the better quality) doing this at home vs taking to a shop.

 

Thanks everyone, I’m also wondering if I should do anything about the same type of build up I’m seeing in the engine block when viewed from the sump access, or if I should just leave it. I’ll share some pictures of the cleaned up pan and pipe after I get to that later.

 

Clean what you can if there's actual sludgy stuff, but that varnish/staining you see on the crank and underside of the block is normal for non-synthetic oil.

Don't forget to change the pickup tube o-ring when you reinstall it.

 

Thank you, I think it’s mostly just the oil stains rather than build up and sludge. I have a new pickup o-ring ready for the pickup pipe when it goes back on. I can’t wait for that that phase of things.