Well I've had a interesting few days lately. First off a year ago I pulled the engine out of my 4.0L SOHC ranger to do the timing chains. Then a few months ago I noticed my truck leaking a large amount of engine oil coming from the tranny bell housing. So I figured rear main seal, so a few weeks ago I pulled the tranny to replace the rear main seal. It took me a week working on it after work but I did it. Put all new fluids in started it up and oil was coming out just as bad as it was before. So it sat for a couple weeks until I was ready to work on it again. So Tuesday (5/10) I started pulling the engine again. After getting it out I noticed oil seeping from the engine cradle. So I pulled the pans off and found the cheap Chinese gasket set from rockauto I had bought just a year ago had dry rotted and broke.

 

That sucks, is the gasket dry rotted or was the pan over tightened?

This go around us a OEM gasket or Felpro and use a calibrated torque wrench.

Make sure not to borrow a torque wrench or buy a cheap one. if someone stores the wrench with the previous torque settings applied on the wrench the calibration will surely be off.

Some of the less expensive torque wrenches can be out of calibration out of the box.

So unless the wrench comes with a calibration sheet do not buy it.

 

No it was definitely dry rotted and brittle. Yeah I replaced it with a Fel-Pro gasket and its torqued to spec. with a reliable torque wrench.