Thanks Dennis,

I dropped the pan again and I was glad I did.  The RTV may have sealed it
for the time being, but the gasket was squished out at several bolt holes,
both inside and out.  Got another pan gasket from Bus Depot (they are only
20 minutes away) and flange head bolts from Fastenal. Put the pan back up
dry, torqued it up in several steps, added 1.3 quarts of gear lube and now
nice and dry.  Ready to go to FL in two weeks to pull weeds that grew during
the rainy season.

VW gave up on the cork based gasket for this application many years ago.
They also updated the screws with a flange head. The new gasket is a stiff
fiberboard material. Using silicone sealer just made things worse as you
eliminated the friction on the gasket surface. I use the "Right Stuff" with
no gasket at all.

Dennis

I changed the pan gasket on the final drive section of my automatic
transmission today.  When I torqued it down to 7 lb. ft. per Bentley the
gasket split at one of the bolt holes and was squeezed out. I don't know if
the inside has also torn and was pushed out.  I did use a thin film of RTV
formulated for gear lube and I did flatten the sealing surface that was
deformed around the bolt holes.  The instruction say to wait 24 hrs. before
adding lube oil so I do not know if it leaks yet.  However if it does not
leak, I still question the integrity and will wonder if it will start to
leak at an inopportune time. So I guess it is back to Bus Depot for another
gasket.

Does anyone have any suggestions to prevent this from happening on the next
gasket.

Thanks for your input.

Bob C