There is no tightening sequence given in the manual, so I used good engineering practice of starting with the bolt closest to the center on each side and working toward the corners. 14 Nm is the spec.

Not much more I can say until I can get it apart. If it's the pan, then this time I'll see if I can get a good bead of the correct sealant all the way around it instead of a rubber gasket, and we'll all learn something.

 

Yup. Ease of manufacture and an assumption that it's sealed for life and will never need servicing, to name two.

 

Some good news: it appears that the leak was coming from the upper cooler line. I didn't tighten the screw holding it to the transmission case so it was quite loose. The pan gasket was dry apart from what traveled across the bottom from the leaking line. I gave the bolts that I could easily reach a turn with the torque wrench anyway and they all took a couple of pulls.

 

Just an update here in the hope that it will help someone else. It turns out that the transmission pan gasket was indeed leaking, significantly. It was a rubber aftermarket gasket with an aftermarket pan, both made in China and purchased from a-premium.com. No quarrel with the seller - it was a cheap part and I knew I was taking a risk. But it’s finally fixed now and I wanted to wait a little while to be sure.

The root cause of the problem was that the aftermarket pan was a poor stamping, and when coupled with the unreinforced rubber gasket, the gasket itself was getting squished in such a way that it was seeping around the bolts.

So I cleaned up the original factory pan, removed all traces of the old sealer with a plastic razor, and bought a Duraprene reinforced gasket from Remco Transmission Parts on eBay. I pulled everything apart again, carefully installed the gasket and OEM pan, and torqued the bolts to spec. No more leaks.

So, for those of you who need to pull your transmission pan and are reading this thread later for guidance, you’re better off using the factory pan with a Duraprene gasket if you don’t want to use the factory sealant method. It’s a super tight working location with the transmission still in the car, so I personally think the sealant method will be problematic anyway. You’d likely smear sealant on the valve body just getting the pan into place.

This is the gasket I ended up using successfully:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185605445018?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=i7xuqM40Tay&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=YmFdGJYXQe y&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Where did you get the OEM valve body from? I might be in need of one now...