lifting the engine from below

[black98V6]

my oil pan gasket is shot, I'm loosing more than a quart of oil between changes all of the bolts holding the pan on are soaked with oil.
I want to change it and I keep reading where the "right" way to do this is to lift the engine from above to get the pan off.

This however is my problem I cannot lift it from above, I want to raise the engine by lifting on the trans with a floor jack. Anyone ever tried this? Ever seen it tried. I know the engine can be supported on the block side by those bolts because that's how it sits on an engine stand, I don't think it will harm the trans bell housing or trans at all but I thought i'd see if anyone else has tried this before.

The plan is to drive the car up on ramps,
Then take the weight of the engine mounts by lifting on the trans.
Take out the engine mount bolts
Raise the engine the extra inch or 2.
Take off the pan bolts
Drop the Pan
change out the gasket
reverse the process to put it back together.

Anyone seen or tried anything close to this?

[Archer]

Re: lifting the engine from below

they can never make it too easy... is there something preventing the pan from just dropping? I havent looked under there, but I plan on putting my motor and a stand and re-working it. If you get it figured out, write something up with photos.. one person's hell can be everyone elses relief.

Archer

[Blizzard242]

Re: lifting the engine from below

The K member is completely in the way but it's possible. I did mine from underneath. A huge pain in the ***. Removed the motor mount bolts from the K member and took a wood block and a jack too the right/passenger mount. You have to make absolutely sure that block is on the mounts enough though or it could slip and turn out ugly. The pan was still a little tricky to remove but with enough patience it can be done. I dunno about lifting it on the bellhousing, i didn't really want to try that cause it seemed like it would have possibly cracked. I underestimate the strength of a lot of things though.

[HeadyFirebird'00]

Re: lifting the engine from below

just curious, how are you sure its the oil pan gasket, and not a rear main seal? i as well have a leak, but there is so much soaked biz under there that i cant get a clear view where the leak is. do you just let the car run and you can physically see it coming out from around the pan?

[kristen]

Re: lifting the engine from below

i wouldn't lift the engine from the tranny.

it's not that easy. i've done mine 3 times now. and there is alot more to changing the gasket than you might think. and the pan just doesn't drop right out like stated above. it's held up in place by the k member. it's probably easiest to get little wrench in there and disconnect the oil pick up.

do you not have access to a engine lift?

[black98V6]

Re: lifting the engine from below

just curious, how are you sure its the oil pan gasket, and not a rear main seal? i as well have a leak, but there is so much soaked biz under there that i cant get a clear view where the leak is. do you just let the car run and you can physically see it coming out from around the pan?

I cleaned the underside at a carwash a few weeks back. Everything was soaked so I was thinking rear main also. After a few weeks of leaking I can see that everything above the oil pan is dry, everything (almost) is dry past the oil pan on back. My car is also a manual and you can see through the inspection hole which lets you see the flywheel that it is dry and my clutch isn't slipping.

Kristen,
no access to a lift for now, I live in an apartment with no real viable storage for a lift or really anywhere to work on the car beyond the parking lot. I had hoped to have a house by the winter but with the current financial situation at my house I dunno if that is going to happen.


after looking things over again I might be able to lift on the mount but that looks a little shaky (literally).
Our engine mounts are kinda wimpy looking so I dunno right now. There is too much other stuff going on at my house to have to attempt this right now. I'm probably going to have to change the power steering pump on the wife's mustang before I can tackle this.

Thanks for the posts so far if anyone else wants to throw in their $.02 I'm all ears.

I'm considering some sort of dry run just trying to lift the engine right now once all the other crap in my sometimes hectic life calms down.

[kristen]

Re: lifting the engine from below

is the oil coming from all around the oil pan of just the front? if it's just the front you might want to check to see if its your crank seal. the way that it would drip down on our engines makes it look like it's the oil pan.

[black98V6]

Re: lifting the engine from below

good to know, but it's uniformly around the pan lip coating all the bolts.

[kristen]

Re: lifting the engine from below

so did mine. it's worth it to spend an hour and take off the crank pully to see if its leaking from there. would have saved me about 10hrs of work if i check that out on my 3rd go round.

[Blizzard242]

Re: lifting the engine from below

crank pulley is a pain in the ***. breaker bars are nice though :) Hey kristen, how did you keep yours from turning?

[Bird_Of_Prey]

Re: lifting the engine from below

crank pulley is a pain in the ***. breaker bars are nice though :) Hey kristen, how did you keep yours from turning?

Take the starter out and jam the flexplate with a big screwdriver. Make sure you heat the crank pulley bolt.

[Mogobs30th]

Re: lifting the engine from below

Take the starter out and jam the flexplate with a big screwdriver. Make sure you heat the crank pulley bolt.

Mapp Gas torch FTW.

[Blizzard242]

Re: lifting the engine from below

I didn't use a screw driver when I did mine, I found a use for my pry bar style valve spring compressor.

[kristen]

Re: lifting the engine from below

took a big screwdriver and stuck it in the slot for the flywheel. there is a tool that they sell that doesn't the same thing just a million times easier and it doesn't slip

[black98V6]

Re: lifting the engine from below

good info I'll have to try the crank seal first.
Of course that's if I didn't blow a headgasket or something earlier today :(

Was passing someone, downshifted to third spinning the engine pretty hard when something suddenly changed, it was kinda like I hit the rev limiter but I wasn't turning that many rpms. At least not near the rev limiter, there was a little jerk then the tone of the engine changed but I was still turning those rpm's, the last mile to work it seemed normal enough so i dunno right now but it sure feels like something happened. Oah well I'll be watching the oil and water to see. Hopefully all turns out ok and I can get back to just having an oil leak.