My 2004 Ram 3500 Cummins 5.9 24v needed a new oil pan, the old one had a pinhole that leaked constantly. A mechanic friend helped me raise the drivetrain and get room above the permanent frame member(nice move by the engineers) and installed the new oil pan with Ultra Black RTV smeared on it in addition to the existent gasket. My factory service manual says that the gasket is part rubber but that first installation was unsuccessful. There were oil drops hanging from about 1 in every four bolts throughout the whole area of the pan.

So I removed the oil pan myself and redid the job- I cleaned off all the Ultra Black as well as the re-used gasket with scrapers, razor blades, and a wire wheel. My reinstallation also leaks. There is one bolt that stripped out while I was hand tightening all the bolts after the first install, an attempt by me to improve the seal as I did not have a torque wrench at the time of the first replacement/install. The "tighten the bolts more" method obviously didn't work. So the one bolt that is at the back passenger corner of the oil pan- on the side, not one of the back four- turns freely but also has a drip of oil hanging off it every time I go down there to check things out.

Since my 2nd removal and re-installation effort, I have gone under the truck several times and found oil hanging off a total of three of the oil pan bolts. This is frustrating- I have a leaky inner gear housing seal and this oil pan should be done right. Does anybody here know if the gasket is a requirement for a proper seal on this job? Several mechanics have told me they do this job with Ultra Black all the time. I am thinking

More info- the first time, we tightened approximately to spec immediately following install. This was not "The Right Stuff" but rather Permatex Ultra Black with 24 hour cure. Instructions on the tube said to hand-tighten and then wait so many hours before torquing to spec. We did not follow instructions that time. The second time, I followed the Permatex instructions exactly with however many hours the tube stated to wait before torquing. Then I torqued the bolts(all except for the stripped out one) with a click style torque wrench.

 

I use rtv with no gasket material all the time. I would recommend a few things the next time around. Use a good straight edge to run against the oil pan gasket surface to make sure its true and flat. I would also hammer the metal at each bolt hole with a ball peen hammer and a 2nd hammer to hit it once centered on the bolt hole. Its an old trick i was taught that seems to help. Get a couple of the bolts that are the next size up meteric or sae doesnt matter. Drill out the bad threads and tap in new threads or use extra bolts and run in bolts till its threading in easyish. With the rtv run your bolts in till the rtv starts to squeeze out just a little then wait an hour or so to tighten them up, should be a quarter turn or less on each bolt. Good luck

 

I use both. Gasket and Permatex black. I smeared the Permatex on both sides of the gasket and finger tightened. I then waited around an hour and a half before tightening. Didn't pour in the oil till next morning though. This was the transmission oil pan.