What am I doing wrong

So I have changed my oil pan gasket twice (had to change oil pan stripped drain plug) both times it leaks. I'm using oem gaskets first time i cleaned both surfaces put the gasket on by itself torqued to spec and it leaked. Put the second one on using a thin layer of black permatex torqued to spec and it leaks. First time was the original oil pan with repaired drain plug second time with new oil pan.

Where is it leaking from ?
Is it the same point every time ?

You have to torque the oil pan screws like a cylinder head sequence crosswise , max 10 Nm

Leaking from different points but the same side. Along the left side of the gasket. When torquing should I start from center and work out. Can it be loosened and retorqued?

Quigleyje wrote: Leaking from different points but the same side. Along the left side of the gasket. When torquing should I start from center and work out. Can it be loosened and retorqued?

You need to look in a Kawasaki manual and follow the torque sequence and do it per the book.

I've looked through my manual and there is no torque sequence for the oil pan.

Because of the welding done to one crank journal and the minor distortion I snug all the small bolts down then tighten the oil filter bolt then tighten the small bolts in a criss cross pattern. I used a little Yama Bond on the gasket to make it tacky.
Steve

The way your tightening it is not the problem. Something else is going on here, are you sure it's the pan that's leaking? The pan is the lowest point on the engine so leaks higher up will migrate to the pan making it look like a pan keak. As long as the surface is clean and straight it will seal. The pan is new so it should be straight and it's pretty hard to warp the case so it should be straight also.

I think it's the pan it didint leak there until I changed it. It was leaking from a stripped drain plug that's why changed the pan. Maybe it is a leak from another spot I'll have to look.

Since you have swapped to the newer style motor, are you using the newer style pan?
Are you using a newer style gasket?
Your original motor and pan would have had the older style gasket, but I think you can use new gaskets on the older pan, but not vice versa.

Here's a link to more than you wanted to know about kz/zx 550 pans and gaskets.
gpzweb.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.co...ns/Kz550oilPans.html

It will show the difference between the two gaskets so you can tell what you have. At least it will be a starting point to figuring it out.

In my opinion, the older gasket would hold its shape better during torqueing. You should be able to trim an old gasket to work on the newer motor. A newer gasket would be nice to have as a pattern to know where to trim.

Take the pan off and use Hylomar on both sides of the gasket.

I made the mistake of buying a nice looking but non oem gasket off Ebay and then decided to spend the money on one from Partzilla that was much nicer. Sounds like Loud might have the real solution to whats happening though ?