Oil Pan Gasket - scrape off easy?

[kocho]

I am about to drop the engine pil pan on my '00 i4 LE as a side step in changing my dead tramsmission. There is a small leak in the back that this will fix before it becomes a big one, hopefully, plus at 120K miles I am curious as to what sludge would I find in there...

If anyone has done that, is the old gasket materia easy to remove?

I already bought some RTV sealant for the new gasket - asking to see if I should also prepare a $10 gasket scraper or would it come off easy and a household spatula or a kichen knife would do... Of course, I can always drive to the autoparts store with my other car if these don'w work, but rather see if anyone has had experience with this.

I plan to clean the surfaces with brake cleaner before applying the gasket.

Btw., I have all the surrounding stuff out of the way, including the exhaust, so removing and reinstalling the pan should be an easy job....

[ghettosled]

the old gasket wasnt too difficult to remove. i dont have a gasket scraper, but i found a window scraper for removing paint works quite well. i dont think a spatula would apply enough force to remove the old material.

throughly clean the mating surfaces with brake cleaner. because of the tilt of the engine, the low side on the block will have to be cleaned last because (at least for me) oil kept dripping on it within a couple of minutes of cleaning it. it the surfaces arent perfectly clear of oil, RTV wont stick.

[Hajoca]

I found plastic putty knife for drywall mus, body filler, etc does a very good job for scraping old form in place stuff.
You can soften most RTV as well with gasket remover, I find that putting it into a cup (cut pop can) and dabbing it on works pretty good, spraying it or squeezing it out of the tube onto the block will waste it becaus it falls off too quickly.

Like above. Use a solvent soaked rag to wipe just before you put on the RTV.

[marc780]

I have tried every scraper tool and gasket remover spray there is, but my favorite tool for removing gasket gunk is a single edge razor blade, without a handle. You'd be careful of course because they are so incredibly sharp, but i find using the razor with a pulling rather than pushing motion, will easily get under most any gasket remnant and lift it off.