One piece oil pan gaskets

I used the factory (Ford supplied) one piece gasket when assembling mine. You may want to check out the construction more closely - mine is metal that is surrounded by the rubber/silicon. So there's not as much flex to it as you might think. Just a thought.

Oh - I've been in the other thread. I believe you're wasting your time trying to drop the pan. To get the motor high enough to do much good, a lot of stuff has to be disconnected. And by the time you've done all that - you might as well pull it out. And I believe you'll have to anyway to get the wrench out.

I'd bite the bullet and pull the motor. By the way - that'll make installation of the new pan gasket a cinch.

I recently changed my oil pan gasket and would highly recommend using the one piece. I've used both.

I have changed oil pan gaskets before with the engine in the car by just dropping the pan a couple of inches. I used the blue felpro one piece gasket. the side rails do have metal in them but I was able to wiggle it past the crank and all that to get it posistioned and it comes with these little plastic studs that you snap the gasket onto to hold it in place while you put the pan back up.

Back to your wrench problem. I went and took a better look at my parts motor and it looks like if you have the timing chain off you should be able to see it, no?