So in yet another attempt to find a mystery oil leak, I decided to check out the oil pan bolts and see how tight they were. Practically the entire driver side of the pan was loose! Not finger loose or anything that bad, but not nearly close enough to being properly torqued down either.

This may not be the sole source of the leak but it's certainly a contributor, and as I was going about tightening them down, you can guess what happened... the cork gasket that was on it broke. Not that I was really surprised by it. If I had to venture a guess I'd say it's the original factory gasket- most of the work I've done to this beast has looked like original factory.

Anyway, since I have to replace the gasket now, I thought it would be an opportune time to inspect and/or replace the oil pump. No sense in putting things back together only to have it go bad on me 3 weeks down the road, or if I'm lucky enough, the very next day!

So I was just curious what I need to be looking for on the pump to determine if it needs replaced or not. I'm definitely going to be cleaning the sump and screen.

Also, would putting loc tite on the oil pan bolts be advisable? I'm really kind of stumped as to why just the driver side bolts were loose, but I figure to prevent any of them from coming loose again, loc tite would be a good idea. I don't see needing to pull the pan off again unless the oil pump does go, which could be a long time down the road.

This project is still a few weeks out- I won't have the time until then. I just want to be prepared for this.

Thanks.