I know the engine must be jacked up to do this. My question is what all is involved? Which engine mounts to I need to unbolt? Is there anything else I need to disconnect to raise the engine up enough to drop the pan to get at the gasket? I have a 5spd if that makes a difference.
This is a very involved fix.
drain oil, coolant....
1. remove cooling hoses
2. Remove tranny cooler (ignore if manual trans)
3. Remove fan / shroud
4. loosen trans cross member
5. Remove both motor mount bolts
6. (can't remember if drive shaft has to come out ???). May require cat-back to drop out depending on clearances to drive shaft. Disconnect O2 sensors
7. disconnect oil level sensor
8. Jack engine up about 3 inches (I use a jack on the pil pan with a 2x4). I use two small 2x4 blocks (3 inches tall) and block the motor at the mount. Let motor down. Now you can safely work without a crush hazard.
9. Remove all oil pan bolts. separate pan from the block. Remove old gasket. (hopefully it was a silicoan piece and peels out in one piece).
10. Clean mating surfaces with rag and solvent (brake cleaner works).
11. Slip gasket between pan and K-member.
12. Slip gasket over the rear of the pan. It will probably go upto the oil pump.
13. Stretch gasket (carefully) over front of pan. Gasket is now between the pan and the block. Clean any crud you may have picked up (helps to clean top of K-memeber first).
14. Align gasket, align pan, insert bolts. Tighten each bolt a little to compress the gasket evenly. Do not over tighten and "squeeze out" the silicon gasket (assuming you use the 1 pieces silicon).
15. Put Her back together. Don't forget to add fluids!!!
16. have beer and admire your difficult accomplishment!
I did this im my garage with a crappy jack, poor lighting and it was 15 degrees. Took me a full weekend. As with any job the first time is the hardest.
I am sure I left out a step or two...it was in 2000 when I did this.
I'd also look into purchasing a single piece rubber pan gasket with the crushable metal rails in them; I think summit sells them. A very worthwhile investment so you won't be doing this PIA job again anytime soon.
What I did:
Put car on jackstands as high as you can get it
Unbolt motor mounts
Unbolt fanshroud
Jack up engine by oil pan (use board between pan and jack)
Put boards between mounts and engine to hold engine in air
Unbolt 2 steering rack bolts, pull rack forward and drop rack to gain much needed room
unbolt pan, remove old gasket
installation is reverse of removal
Do I just need to unbolt the 2 motor mounts on the drivers side, or do all of the mounts need to be unbolted? My dilemma is this. I'm not sure if it's the oil pan gasket or the rear main seal. The rear main was just replaced about 2 years ago when I did a clutch swap. However, I have read that the rear main has been known to leak 20k miles after it was replaced. SO, I'm not sure whether I want to go thru the hassle of just swapping the oil pan, and hope it's not the rear main.. or if I should just drop the tranny and remove the clutch and see if it's the rear main. I read in another post that a guy didn't have to jack the motor up or anything when he swapped the gasket with the tranny and clutch and everything dropped already. Either way it's a PITA. I dont wanna hassle with swapping the oil pan and then have it be the rear main seal leaking. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.
Any input on what I should do? Right now I'm thinkin about just dropping the tranny and takin off the clutch and going that route. That way I can kill 2 birds with 1 stone if the rear main is leaking also, and just replace the pan gasket while things are apart.
Well, I just decided to trop the tranny and have a look. I got the bellhousing off, but have a question. How can I tell if it's the rear main or oil pan leaking? If it's the rear main, would there be oil all over the backside of the flywheel? I don't want to take the clutch and flywheel off if I can narrow it down to the oil pan gasket, rather than remove the clutch and flywheel and have it be the pan gasket. Is there any way to tell for sure, or should I take off the flywheel and look?
There's no easy answer here. You're going to have to pull the clutch and flywheel to be able to see the gasket. Once you've done that, you might as well replace the rear main, cuz you're already in there. They're cheap. Put it back together and see what you've got. If it's still leaking, it was your pan gasket!