With the engine in the car, the oil pan is not that dificult to remove .

People have been asking how to do it, so here is exactly how it was done, with one person. Air tools will help but not necessary, although stands/ramps and a jack are necessary. You will also need a scrap of 2x6" or 2x8" and two short 2x4" scrap.

First get the car in the air and drain the oil.

Next you will need to remove the two 10mm nuts on the front corners of the pan and move the wiring harness/bracket out of the way (is so equiped).

Remove the motor mount bolts, be aware that the nut is 16mm and the bolt head is 15mm.

Take the scrap wood and cut it to lenght as to fit between your jack and the harmonic balancer (it will fit between the k member sway bar just right), then notch the end in a "u" or "v" shape so it doesn't slide off the balancer.

Slowly jack the motor up while keeping an eye on the distributor (you can remove it, but I didn't and it was fine).

Once the motor is about 3"-4" off the mounts (or until the bell housing hits the floor), now you can cut a piece of 2x4" and stand it vertical between the mounts and lower the jack.

Remove the flywheel cover (10mm and 15mm bolts), starter (15mm bolts), and the y pipe from the manifolds and unplug o2 sensor (if equipped).

Remove the (10mm) bolts ffrom the pan and make sure you take out the studs that are in the front corner that you took the nuts off earlier.

At this point the pan should almost fall on you after a light tap sideways with the heel of your hand! Slide the pan out, some people have said they needed to rotate the motor so #1 rod didn't catch the front of the pan, but either way it will take some wiggling to get it completely out.

Installation is reverse.



A couple of notes:

The fist time I did this, I unbolted the tranny mount bolts, not a good idea because the motor will want to slide back and it was a pain to re-align the mounts. While you are there, check your bearings (at least re-torque the caps nuts/bolts) and probably change your oil pump while you are in there. If you have an early v6 (pre 86) with a two piece rear seal, this can also be changed while you are there. Just use the bottom half of the seal to push the top half around to grab it with pliers and slide the new one in.

 

^ Excellent write up....

 

Still got to edit, but we could use some more stickies in the v6 section .

 

thanks man. im really hopping on just a bad oil pump.

 

we really just need one sticky. and the first post in that sticky could be edited to include links to stuff like this in alphabetical order. or perhaps broken down by categories.

then the sticky can just link to the threads about things like oil pan, cruise control, Tune-up, turbo-how-to, etc...

 

Very true, that is even better than a buch of stickies. Just seems like all the other forums have multiple stickies and the V6 section has three, After market parts, turbo install, and tune up .

 

You can remove the pistons using this method. This is great for people who are going to brave the hybrid top end swap and need to use FWD pistons...

 

Good job and nice write up...but I would think that most of the third gen people that would tackel this would need to get their cylinders worked over. Good for changing bearings and lower mileage engines though.