Drove around today and no hard shifts today... loosened the pan bolts and lightly tighten them and no drips today but crawled under to look after driving around and coming home and see residue on one spot so either still to tight, or old fluid. Will wait till it cools down tonight and look again. Then maybe loosen bolts on that spot some more. Worse case drop the pan and put gasket on that came with the filter it’s rubber not not as nice as the factory gasket. Maybe a compromised factory one?

 

Maybe overtightening the bolts has deformed the mating surface.

 

Hope not as don’t feel like draining it all over again.. But either way it’s really old so maybe just remove it might have caused that.

 

Well it kept dripping here and there even after messing with the bolts several times. So pulled the pan again, cleaned it off, used new rubber gasket from filter kit which looked generic and did not have the nipples like the GM gasket had to go into the hose just a block off formed on gasket. I cleaned the mating surfaces, applied form a gasket on the pan cover then laid the gasket down pushing it down evenly. Loosely tightened the pan on and let it sit for awhile then tightened it again and filled the pan up. Look under the HHR and its dripping out good. So threw a pan under it jacked it up. Loosened the one bolt where the pan was leaking steady it got worse. So tightened it and slowed down. Looked around and saw three other spots once awhile doing the same so tightened them all some more and so far nothing in the past 20mins. Blows my mind what’s going on here. Is it the cheap gasket? Did I cause the problem using the gasket maker and the gasket? I have done several of my cars in the past and never any issues. Even torn my old camaro LT1 motor apart modifying it and sending the cylinder heads out. I never once had a fluid leak from top to bottom and all I used Felpro gasket no gasket sealer or maker. Did this time as was worried about the gasket quality. Pan looks normal don’t see anyway it’s bent. Here is a picture the original gasket. Looks fine except two areas it’s flimsy not sure if that’s broken areas or normal..

Hopefully you can see in these pictures how it bends in these spots..


Here it is laying flat on garage floor.

 

Sounds like the pan mating surface is not level or is bent. Stick a straight edge on it. The straight edge should fit flush.
Back in the old days of working on GM Turbo 350 and 400's, we would always have to straighten out the pans before reinstalling. Mostly because the bolts when tightened down would warp the pan at the bolt holes.
The bolts would cause the area around the holes to "pimple" up.

 

What mine did was bend the tin into a dimple at all of the bolts, that was from making them "god n' tight". I think broken metal in the factory gasket is bad; I reused mine and never felt secure about it. But I hated the micron thin one that came with the filter.

 

I didn’t see any dimples and thought about checking straightness but figured it was fine. Hoping it’s just the gasket as read other places on the net where people complained about same issue and replaced with acdelco and issue stopped. If you were able to fix the pans back in the day then if mines a little bent should be easy to do right? Any tips if that’s the case? Picking up acdelco gasket at Autozone now. Should I use any type of sealer with the gasket. Also I did have to pull the gasket to make it fit correctly and three of the holes didn’t line up perfect but no fluid leaks from bolts hole just top of the pan where gasket is. Might be leaking from bolts now and didn’t look this am and had to drive it 10miles round trip to get to Autozone. Forgot to add the gasket was very smooth from the kit and had no ridges like most gaskets have which to mean was odd and figured it might leak.

 

Put a metal strip under the pan edge that will fit up into the groove on the pan. That will give you something solid to tap the pan edge down to.

 

I don’t recommend any form a gasket in the transmission pan, why? You ask, because transmission fluid is high in detergents which will wash out the sealant. The OEM gasket has the metal pieces in it, to stop the bolts from crushing out the gasket.
Straighten out the pan flange as FMG suggested. And get a new OEM gasket. Snug the pan bolts finger tight then torque to spec, 8 lb/ft

here is information about that flange and sealant

AGCO Automotive Repair Service - Baton Rouge, LA - Detailed Auto Topics - Transmission pan leaks

 

Okay great thanks will be working on it in a few!
Considering GM didn’t use anything to seal the gasket your right just paranoid now haha. Also the gasket from the kit was just folded up shoved in the box so that doesn’t help either.

I don’t know enough about transmission’s but do they shift into fourth gear harder then the rest of the gears? If so maybe my transmission bushing needs replaced with 160,000 miles on it.