Oil pan and pickup tube question

[buru]

I'm replacing the oil pan gasket in my 92 loyale this weekend and wondering if I jack up the engine high enough, will the pan clear the pickup tube and come off?......since I know removing the tube is harder than crap.

 

Also, do you all remove the bolts from the mount to the engine, or the mount to the cross-member? Does anything else have to be removed, such as the shifter linkage, to accomodate for jacking the engine up? Thanks

[Txakura]

I'm replacing the oil pan gasket in my 92 loyale this weekend and wondering if I jack up the engine high enough, will the pan clear the pickup tube and come off?......since I know removing the tube is harder than crap.

 

Also, do you all remove the bolts from the mount to the engine, or the mount to the cross-member? Does anything else have to be removed, such as the shifter linkage, to accomodate for jacking the engine up? Thanks

 

Unfortunately, I just had this experience. I was able to get the pan down far enough to take the old gasket off, and put the new one on. I took the nuts off the engine to crossmember studs, left the exhaust connected and did not take the torque link off. When the engine is lifted about 1 1/2" to 2" inches, loosen the mount to block bolts, take one bolt out and rotate the mount assembly out of the way, they overlap the pan just enough to trap it in place.

 

The pan will not move far enough aft (?) to come off the pick up tube. However, the tube is attached with 1) 10mm bolt and there appears to be an o-ring at the tube to block intersection. If I had had a new o-ring, I would have pulled the pickup and pan. (This is something other people can comment on). If your pan gasket is cooked on and crispified, it'd be just about impossible to get all the old crap off without being able to completely remove the pan.

 

To get the new gasket on, around the pan, I cut it at about a 45 degree angle between two holes on the side of the pan leaving lots of edge margin on the holes and sealing the beejeezuz out of the area of the cut. Cutting at an angle presents some gasket to the oil and not a straight path for an exit. It is not leaking.

 

There is just enough room to get your hand between the bottom of the engine and the seal surface of the pan. It should go without saying that you will have to be extremely careful to not knock any crap into the pan, or sockets, or bolts...

 

You will need a 1/4" universal joint and at least a 9" extension to get the 6 bolts across the back row of the pan above the crossmember. Put some masking tape on the u-joint to keep it from flopping around and being useless, put a small piece on the end to keep the socket tight, and on the end to keep the ujoint/socket from falling off and being frustrating.

 

It took me just over an hour, at a very leisurely pace.

 

here are some pics, it was dark and no fun, but I thought to take some blurry crappy cell pics to remind myself of how stupid I can be

[buru]

Can the engine be lifted more than 2" so that it CAN clear the pickup tube?? Will the tranny mounts have to be unbolted too?

[Txakura]

I didn't have time to screw around with it when I did mine

 

if you disconnect the exhaust, the torque link and the spare tire carrier (the heater core hoses will hit it) and at least loosen the transmission mounting bolts... I have no idea what you'd get

 

I got enough room to do mine and stopped, there was no reason for me to try and go higher

 

you could of course pull the engine out - then you'd have all the room in the world

[Niku-Sama]

well from my experence from pulling turbo exhaust manifolds off, FWD cars have more give and their engines can be lifted further than AWD/4WD cars.

 

undoing the motor mounts and using some sort of old EGR tubing to act as a lever in the junk yard i got about 4 inches on the FWD car but the AWD car not so much, mabe an inch or 2

[beataru]

I did this on a 1998 2.5 rs and a 1991 SPFI FWD Loyale. it is possible, we got the pan off, but its not easy, you have to undo the motor mounts either where they mount to the engine, or to the crossmember, and then jack the sucker up, be sure to use wood or something so you dont crack anything.

 

We used wood on the oilpan to jack it up as far as we possibly could, and then jammed 2x4s into both sides of the engine so that it would stay there and we fought a legendary battle to get the pan off, around the pickup. but we did it.

[Txakura]

We used wood on the oilpan to jack it up as far as we possibly could, and then jammed 2x4s into both sides of the engine so that it would stay there and we fought a legendary battle to get the pan off, around the pickup. but we did it.

 

use a block of 4 x 4 about 10" long on a floor jack under the cylinder head outside of the oil pan, then it's not in your way to get the pan off

[idosubaru]

i have another recommendation. clean off the bottom of the engine and make absolutely sure the oil pan is leaking. you very well might be replacing something that doesnt' even need replaced.

 

almost every other possible oil leak in the engine will allow drippage down to the edges of the oil pan, making it look wet, even when it's not leaking.

 

that being said, i've done oil pan gaskets before too. i was able to do it by unbolting the motor mount (from cross member, leaving it on engine), and the rear transmission mount. this allows the entire engine/trans assembly to rock.

 

i did that on an XT6, but for your concerns the EA engines and trans are essentially the same mounting wise except the spare tire is in the way of course. the engine and trans has the same mount set up.

[Txakura]

i have another recommendation. clean off the bottom of the engine and make absolutely sure the oil pan is leaking. you very well might be replacing something that doesnt' even need replaced.

 

almost every other possible oil leak in the engine will allow drippage down to the edges of the oil pan, making it look wet, even when it's not leaking.

 

good point. mine was leaking like a sieve, no idea what his is doing - hard to tell over the internet, no matter how hard I stare at my monitor

 

but since he asked... and I had just done mine the hard way, it seemed goodly to write all I had done