i was wondering if anyone has used a "make-a-gasket" for sealing the front cover. i have had great luck in the past with a product called black magic which is very dense and fast drying. i need to replace my front cover gasket as it has split and heaved up at the 12oclock position and i hate waiting for gaskets from my local dealer. it takes like a week to get them.

 

I have no doubt you can use a silicone gasket maker to seal the front cover - I have done so on a 13bt swap into a 1st gen(you've gotta use a 1stgen front cover)- but its very crude, and really improper and risky.

buy the gasket or seal it at your own risk

 

My front cover is sealed with a thin layer of orange RTV, and hasn't leaked a drop yet (20k miles on the rebuild). Same with the oil pan. The FC is the only car I have that *doesn't* leak.

-=Russ=-

 

It's a common practice to not use a gasket on the front cover and use RTV. The one place that you have to use care, is on the upper left side where there is an approx 1/8' hole that feeds your OMP oil. You don't want to clog that hole.

 

thanks guys

 

using silicone is better as it helps the oil o-ring stay crushed, the gasket, being thicker, crushes it less, plus they tend to split , spead out and make a crazy leak.

doing it in the car, or taking the engine out? i found it easier to do in the car then most people said it would be.

kevin.

 

i'd only ever use a gasket...

it would change the clearance between the front cover oil passage way (the one that uses an o-ring and is reinforced with a plastic ring on series 5's) between it and the passage way on the front iron?

the problem with those o-rings is only on the series 4 front iron (i've heard the ring can slip out from pressure) series 5 front irons fixed this problem.

they designed that part with the gasket in mind and there is a specific clearance you're supposed to leave for an o-ring based on it's thickness. crushed o-rings generally leak horribly from my experience and have been visibly torn up after disassembly of said leaky parts.

some of you may have had success with it, but i'm gonna go ahead and say i'd never do it unless it was a series 4 and i think it's a bad idea.

 

this is what i was talking about in my post, it'll change the clearance, but tighter isn't worse in this situation, it's a better seal. I just did this to my 88 n/a, 17k on a mazda reman motor and their gasket split and poked out (i could rev the motor and practically lose a quart of oil...it was bad) , replaced with gasket maker (specifically used white VW silicone, i had it handy and is tacky and dries nice and quick) oil pressure is perfect, no oil leaks, i even used it to seal the front half of the oil pan (i did it in the car, with the oil pan still on) and the whole oil pan doesn't leak, even at the point wher ei broke off the oil pan gasket. and i did this with a/c and p/s still on the motor...that made the whole proces a bigger bitch then it needed to be.

kevin.

 

yeah, i was mixed up... edited my post

what i was trying to say was it shouldn't be done on a s5

 

The Turrentine video shows how to epoxy a small tube, on the iron side, in the mop oil feed so the silicone won't plug the feed hole.

 

Read this http://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/oring.htm

 

well it is a s4 and i am replacing the oring. unfortunately i was already aware of the mazdatrix oring write up as well as the front pulley writeup. i am doing this with the motor in the car. i was a victim of the factory gasket splitting and dumping 2 quarts of oil every time i took the car to work (like 15 miles). while my oring and oil pressure are 100% right spec i am a little nervous about the end play of my motor. during assembly i reused the never disassembled the front cover and all that stuff, i just slide my eshaft down and rearranged all that stuff with a screwdriver (i know i know probably a bad decision) but it ran fine and endplay was just barely still in spec but i will probably redue all of that now while it is apart. can i check the endplay with the transmission attached or will i have to remove it?