Sounds like a windage tray to me. I have one installed in my '82 diesel
vanagon. I think I paid around $60 for it.  It should be reusable.  But
I didn't use any RTV on it and only had a minor leak that I cleared up
by torquing the bolts a little further.

I might be able to save you a few bucks if you decide to buy a new one.
I can point you at my local foreign car parts store where I got it.

If I were you, I'd probably torque those bolts as tight as I could
without stripping anything.. If that didn't do it, I'd probably either
install a new tray, or just get a regular oil pan gasket if I was tight
on cash.

Brad

Larry Alofs wrote:

>Hi,
>Perhaps someone who has been there can advise me.
>  We have a 94 Golf which has been leaking oil recently from along the
>edge of the oil pan.  When I got under there a couple of weeks ago, I
>found that many of the bolts were rather loose. I tightened them and
>assumed that the problem was solved.  A few days ago I found that the
>leak was just as bad if not worse and the bolts were still tight.  It
>looked like there was a rubber (neoprene?) gasket visible around the
>edges.
>  Looking in the Bentley I find a drawing for an ABA engine which shows
>something that I would imagine to be a windage tray, except that it is
>labeled as a "noise baffle" (!).  The book says that it is not used on
>all models.
>  Well yesterday I took it apart and found that I am one of the lucky
>ones.  There is no gasket in the traditional sense.  The tray is metal
>with a layer of rubber on both sides of the edge where it fits between
>the block and the pan.  It has no obvious defects, but it may be
>distorted with a little waviness along the edge that was leaking.  All
>the rubber looks normal.  I dressed down the edge of the pan with a
>large flat file and found slight unevenness in that area.
>  I called a few dealers around Chicago yesterday to see if by some
>miracle one of them had the tray in stock (and was open on Saturday).
>  No luck finding it quickly, but I learned that it costs $95. and can
>be ordered. They call it a "restrictor". It was apparently installed
>only in the early 94 engines.
> One parts guy told me "they use black RTV there".
>I hesitate to do this because it would make disassembly very difficult
>later.  When I dropped the pan, I could not remove it until I also got
>the tray loose from the block. (This was related to some interference
>from the  power steering pump.)
> My questions:
>   Has anyone already solved this problem, and how?
>   Should I use the RTV?
>   Should I buy the new tray even tho the old one looks quite good?
>
>TIA   Sorry for the length of this.
>
>Larry A.
>