I fought oil leaks on two different 440 cars.
The first was the worst. Replaced the timing cover seal. That helped. Did the oil pan twice before I realized something VERY weird.

That old pan had about 6 pinholes (tiny, tiny pinholes) where the baffles were spot welded to the pan!!! I was lucky to catch that! Pan went in the garbage, new pan.

Replaced the rear main.

The next car wasn't so bad, but it did need a new rear main.

One thing about windage trays...DONT dick around with the pan, two gaskets, the tray, the motor, and RTV at the same time!!!

Get a piece of plywood and mark the bolt pattern with the pan. Drill the holes.
Lay the tray on the plywood--you will probably have to cut out an area in the plywood so that the tray lays flat.

Now you have a gluing template, I have used mine twice, save it.

Now you can RTV the gaskets to the tray, lay the pan on top, and bolt and nut the assembly together for a day. Do NOT RTV the tray to the pan at this point--the oil pump pickup will be a problem if you do!

You just eliminated all sorts of juggling and aligning of holes while trying to bolt the pan, tray to the motor.

You also just eliminated the chance of gaskets squishing out during torquing of the pan.

I think some body makes a tray with built in gaskets, that's basically what you are making here.


Whether you use RTV on the pan rail during assembly is up to you, but I don't, except for a slight finger dab on the block where the front cover meets, and rear seal retainer junctions.