What do you need to do with the oil pan during a cam swap. All I can find are sketchy details. Seems that some people are lifting up the engine a bit, some are not. If you lift it, how much? If not, how do you remove the cover?

This is my first cam/swap, so I've never actually had any hands on experience.

 

I've seen old timers remove the pan bolts starting at the fron tof the block and working their way back (leaving the rear bolts in) This will alow the pan to be pulled down enough to get the timing cover over the pan lip. Sometimes you need to jack up the engine, most of the time you don't. Now keep in mind that this is frought with problems, your depending on the old pan gaskets to stay intact, you have to pry the new timing cover seal back over the pan lip. (some guys cut the back of the timing cover lip in order to make this easier) Gaskets ansd stuff moves around and then you get to do it again. In my opinion, you should try to remove the pan completely, clean the gasket surfaces and reinstall it, in this case, probably yes, you'll have to jack up the engine in the frame. It's really not that big of a deal and this way you can change the oil pump out as well. What you may have to do is remove the oil pump, with the pan still physically in the car, just reach in with a wrench and unbolt it, or the pickup, whatever you need to do and remove pan and pump in one shot. It's a lot easier than it sounds, it's just involved. Don't forget to prime the oil pump.

 

I've personally done it both ways on different vehicles, but with our cars there is hardly any space at all between the front of the pan and the crossmember so lifting the motor is pretty much a given. When I had the 305 I swapped the cam and tried the ole cut the ears off the timing chain cover adn silicone the heck out of it to get it to seal. I had minimal leakage, bit major pita. If your going to do this, take the wee bit of ectra time and just jack up the motor, the distributors out already, so it's just a matter of taking out the 2 motor mount bolts, this will definatly make getting the pan bolts out much easier.

When you go to reinstall everything, definately invest the $20 for a new oil pump, kinda of a no brainer since it's the heart of the engine pumping oil. Then do yourself a favor and invest in a 1 peice gasket, we've got 8 guys running them and they are soo much better than the 4 peice gaskets of old.

The extra $50 invested into these peices will assure a motor with a good pump and no leaks from the under side. Time saved in the future with possible problems.

On a side note, alot of the older GM bodied cars all the pan to be dropped with the motor still in the cradle-without lifting. We've done it twice on my buddies Malibu and you can easily stick your arm between the pan and the crossmember-we're not as lucky-but our cars we're built for an entirely different function than the G-bodies too though. Same on my truck, was able to drop the pan enough to install the new pan gasket, just had a heck of a time feeding it past the pick up since the 302 is in the center of the block. But both these applications used 1 peice gaskets so it made boltinig up a snap.