changing oil pan gasket w/o engine hoist...

[biglittledog]

I have an oil leak onto the exhaust coming from the rear of the oil pan. I need to know how much trouble I'll get into if I try this without the aid of an engine hoist since the Haynes manual says I need to raise the motor 2+ inches.

If its not feasible to do it without a hoist I'll end up taking it to a shop and letting them do it.

Has anyone done this at home with the motor in the car?

Thanks for all advice...

[johnceggleston]

I have an oil leak onto the exhaust coming from the rear of the oil pan. I need to know how much trouble I'll get into if I try this without the aid of an engine hoist since the Haynes manual says I need to raise the motor 2+ inches.

If its not feasible to do it without a hoist I'll end up taking it to a shop and letting them do it.

Has anyone done this at home with the motor in the car?

Thanks for all advice...

it may not be the pan gasket. there is a sperator plate behind the flywheel that is notorious for leaking. thet come from the factory with plastic plates, the fix is a replacement metal one. but you have to pull the engine.

 

make, model and miles??

[biglittledog]

'97 Outback AT, 212k miles but I've had it only a month. Bought it cheap with a bad front differential and had a shop install a used diff/tranny from a driveable -97 Outback (trans had exact same code) that was hit with 90K on it. The shop put in new seals on the engine side and the input shaft. It seems like they did a good job and the car drives/shifts well. They told me the leak was the pan gasket. They probably would have fixed it except that I had stupidly told them to do the tranny swap and seals and I'd do everything else...I'm still figuring out how much else I have to do to get the Outback in order and didn't want to rack up a huge shop bill until I had driven the car a little to check it out.

It looks like someone jacked the car up from the oil pan since there is a big dent in it. I loosened and retorqued the pan bolts to factory spec. but the back four are a *************** to get at. I drilled two small holes in the crossmember and tightened as best I could. One of the back bolts was very loose. It seemed to have lessened the leak but it's still there a little bit...