well ive been reading up on what it involved in replacing the oil pan gasket, and it seems like a pain in the ***. the leak is not really all that bad its very slow, but is anoying non the less. a couple people told me just to tighten up the bolts a little. that will run the risk of making the leak worse wont it? if that is the case i will just leave it be for now. like i said its a very slow leak.

 

I would just tighten up the bolts, it won't make it leak more. Unless it's a bad leak, I wouldn't worry about it, just check the oil more frequently than usual. To replace the pan gasket you have to pull the engine and that's a real pain, so unless it's bad I wouldn't do it, but if you have lots of free time and patience go right ahead.

 

if you have some experience or people willing to help you that have some experience OR if you have a daily driver i would pull the engine and fix it. its not too hard, and you will only get better at doing it by doing it

 

sounds like a good excuse to do an engine swap.... lol

 

well i know i could do, it. i have friends that know their stuff and im not too shabby myself. the thing is if i have to disconect so much stuff and jack the motor up like 6 inches, i might as well do a bunch of other stuff while its all apart. a motor swap is not too far in the future as i have a 350 im going to build, i just need the cash to do it. the car is only summer driven, so it really only gets maybe 6k on it every year. i really only end up adding a quarter quart or so between changes. and teh valve seals are shot too. like i said the leak is more of an anoyance than anything. if tightening the bolts a little bit wont hurt anything i just try that 1st.

 

I would think removing the Y pipe, disconnecting the motor mounts and raising the engine a few inches would give you enough clearance to take out the pan without having to remove the motor from the car. If it was me I'd definitely try it the easy way first.

 

llvll is right you can get it done without pulling the motor. If tightening the bolts don't fix it. Take your distibutor cap off and undo the motor mounts, Jack the motor up about 6 inches and your home free. I changed out the oil pan gasket about a month after the motor swap. It only took about 2 hours or so. Hardest part was getting the pan back on with only my 2 hands. If you do this get a buddy it will be well worth it.

 

llvll and 91 blue are right. It's not hard to do. I jacked my engine up 3.5 inches (width of 2x4 blocks that I used to hold the engine up) and the pan came right out. 1 person job. Took about 90 minutes to do.

 

so i dont need to disconect just about everything like it says in the tech article? i was probably going to do some tranny work this summer so maybe i just do it when the trans is out and i have a lil more room.

 

When I did mine I pulled the engine mount bolts, tranny mount bolt, and the distributor cap. IIRC that's all I removed. I don't remember if I had to drop my exhaust.

 

nope don't have to remove everything in the engine bay, unless your curious and want to see how fast you can put it all back together.
This is what I did when I changed mine out.

Drained oil
removed distibuter cap/rotor (they brake easy)
loosened and removed Motor mount bolts
Jacked motor up (like mentioned before and Put a 2X4 in both of the motor mount spots. Lowered motor
removed jack from underneath car
loosened oil pan bolts
dropped pan
scraped all old gasket matierial and clean up all metal surfaces
installed gasket and put it all back together. No more oil leaks!!!!!

should only take a few hours.

woops don't forget to put oil back in before you drive off!

 

Just thought I'd ask for when the time comes when I have to replace mine,,,did you use RTV at all anywhere on the pan? I noticed mine has a gasket and some RTV on the front and back, and apparently it must work cuz I've had the car almost two years and everything is bone dry underneath.

 

Just thought I'd ask for when the time comes when I have to replace mine,,,did you use RTV at all anywhere on the pan? I noticed mine has a gasket and some RTV on the front and back. There's also RTV and gasket on the front and back of the intake manifold. I always thought combining the two was a bad idea, but apparently it must work since there are no leaks anywhere under the car.

 

I used a gasket that said install dry. It was a rubber type gasket not the cork one. I did not put any rtv or silicon on the gasket and it has been almost a year with no leaks.

When the motor was put together I did use rtv on the intake manifold. BTW it doesn't leak either.