Oil Pan Fitting Installation

I bored 2 holes in my oil pan for the Milodon swivel pickup installation. The Milodon kit comes with 2 washers and 2 rubber o-rings to seal the pickup to pan on the inside.

How tight should the -12 AN fitting backing nut be tightened to squish the rubber o-ring?

Do I need additional sealant or does the o-ring do the job?

Thanks, Chip

I found that a thin smear of silicone goes a long way to seal those. You don't need to crank down on the nuts with a 3ft. breaker bar, but the o rings should compress enough to seal properly, and without the nuts vibrating loose. A short open end wrench pulled snug by hand, and a small extra bump for good measure, is what I usually do.

Thanks for this post. I will doing my first external pickup
Pretty soon and any little tips are helpful.

Like sgcuda said, silicone is your friend! No need to tighten the snout out of them, just snug them up and take some time to seal every gap w/ a thin bead of silicone or it will leak. Even the Doty (DMI) sealing rings leak, for me anyway, but they are better then the Milodon washers.

Well that's a loaded question......

Snug as it will go without distortion...Thinner the pan, the lighter you have to go....And yes, rtv,,,I used to have blue aluminum washers that captured the o-rings so they didn't squeeze out. Problem was most fittings weren't long enough to use them most of the time.. Went to the copper washer captured style 0-rings....and lots of rtv before a drop of oil goes in...

My new setup by Billet Fab uses a static pickup and AN16 welded fitting....no leaky washers...

Use sealant called The Right Stuff. Follow the instructions.

silicone adhesive or silicone gasket cement?

Silicone adhesive

The Ultra Gray Ford spec stuff is very substantial. Or the real silicone black 16B.

just don't use a TON. a light smear is enough.

I always run a bead of silicone under the washers, and around the holes on the pickup. And i use the larger Indy swinging pickup. A Milodon pickup is on the left.

we make the bulk head sealing washers with dual orings so you don't have to use silicone.

You guys scare me with your unbridled use of rtv !!! Personally I wound NEVER in a million years use that crap anywhere near a fuel or oil fitting. You are just begging for trouble if the fitting ever needs to come apart. You will have bits of that crap everywhere you don't want it.

I this particular case, pipe sealant is the only type of sealant that should be used. It will stay soft and if the part ever needs to come apart the sealant can be wiped off. There is no hardened sealant bits to get anywhere it doesn't belong.

As far as how tight to do those washers ... tight enough that they won't come loose !! There is a groove cut on the back of the pickup fitting to contain the o-rings. Tighten the nuts till the pickup is tight against the pan - the o-rings aren't going anywhere !!

if you over tighten the nut the oring will crush and squeeze out. the fitting isn't design to have a pocket for the o ring. that's why we make the bulkhead washers. this washer, has a taper to seat the oring on the fitting and another o ring on the reverse side that seals flat against the pan. the washer has the appropriate pockets to use O-rings, then you can torque the nuts to the proper value depending on size of nut.

I'll use the pipe sealant. The rubber O-rings that come with the Milodon 21464 washer/o-ring kit are .20 (1/8 in) thick. Instruction is to put this o-ring on the inside (washer outside) and they definitely do not crush down so the the pickup seats against the pan.

I will tighten the backing washer until the rubber o-rings are .10 (1/16 in) squished. I will also use pipe sealant on the outside lock-nut threads so hopefully they won't loosen up from vibration.

Then I will fill the pan with oil to bench test for leaks...

Use something thinner for your bench test. Cold oil won't leak like hot oil will.

I have a system one filter, so its easy to check when I change oil. I install my oil pickup just like most who replied, with silicon, I like the gray. And I seldom get metal in my filter, but every oil change I get pieces of RTV. So far no problems, but you may have something about using to much RTV.

Pipe sealant has teflon in it. If anything it will help those nuts to loosen. I'd suggest a couple drops of blue loctite instead.

the "secret" is to not use a TON of sealant, be it silicone or pipe dope.
like the old brylcream add said : "just a little dab'll do ya !"