I am replacing the oil pan gasket on my 91 Civic LX manual tranny. Two of the oil pan bolts (10 mm heads) also help fix the clutch cover. When the clutch cover is in place, it blocks access to two other oil pan bolts (the ones at the passenger side end of the oil pan). As a result, I cannot torque the bolts in sequence per the shop manual. Has anyone just clipped off the two clutch cover tabs through which the two oil pan bolts insert and left it to the two larger bolts at the bottom to hold the clutch cover in place? Here is a picture of the clutch cover (lower right hand image):


http://i393.photobucket.com/albums/p...lutchCover.gif

The only alternative I can figure is to leave off the clutch cover; torque the oil pan bolts per the shop manual's steps; unscrew the two oil pan bolts for the clutch cover (losing even torque on the oil pan bolts etc.); install the clutch cover; and then re-install the two oil pan bolts, torquing them to spec.

The two larger bolts near the bottom of the clutch cover (12 mm and 14 mm heads) hopefully would hold the clutch cover in place just fine.

This is the second time I have replaced the oil pan gasket on this car. The first was in 2004. Clearly I messed up in 2004, since the oil pan gasket started leaking again this past summer.

 

dont tourque them down, just tighten them in a criss cross pattern do not over tight them, just a little more then finger snug. You will be good.

 

The pattern on the oil pan bolts isn't so much a requirement as a guideline. You can safely remove those 2 bolts temporarily and then just re-torque them when you need to.

The only tricky thing about clipping the cover is that if you ever go with an aftermarket header that does not have the attachment points for that panel, you might have some issues.

 

Thank you for the input traxaxx and sanimalp. I feel more confident about just going finger tight all around and then removing the two clutch cover/oil pan bolts, installing the cover, and re-torquing the two oil pan bolts.

Before posting back, I left the clutch cover off and torqued everything, in three steps and with a low range torque wrench, to 8.7 ft-lbs. I am sure I messed this up somewhat because I did not feel the "click" a few times on the torque wrench and probably forced thing. Lying under the car and handling the wrench overhead was messing up my feel for the click. I should have heeded your all's advice about going by feel and hand tight. I then installed the clutch cover, bending the tabs through which the two oil pan bolts go so I did not have to remove those two bolts. See the photo below for a partial paranoid(!) explanation. Anyway, after 40 miles or so of driving over a few days and a close inspection of the oil pan bolts and pan itself, everything seemed dry. Yesterday I undid the two bolts and properly installed the clutch cover. I will monitor and report if the oil pan starts leaking again anytime soon.

The photo below shows somewhere in the last few years I overdid it on those two bolts. In fact, the old oil pan even shows some deformation from overtorquing them. I guess it is possible that it is a bit of a design problem but I think it 99.9% probable that this was "mechanic's error."



(I replaced the old oil pan with a carefully inspected junkyard one. The old one also had been a little caved in from a timing belt job an import garage did many years ago, before I started doing my own Honda work.)

For the archives, one other thing about the torquing pattern being a guide: I did the torquing in three steps per a 95-95 Civic shop manual. This same manual also says to go around clockwise starting from the aft center bolt when torquing. This is different from past shop manuals. Maybe it is better; dunno. From all the reports of oil pan gasket problems here, I figure, like you all say, it is mostly a case of grasping the concept of "less is more" when it comes to torquing some bolts. A little less actually seems to be way more in this instance.

Thanks again. I expect leakage but am also sure that three times will be a charm, following the gentler approach.