blackspawn Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I've check everywhere on this site to change out my oil pan gasket. Need to know if I need to take apart the whole frontend just to change a oil pan gasket? I love this rig but I'm very close to @!*% canning it. Simple stuff takes too long on this engine ie..oil pan gasket,valve cover gasket just ridicules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackspawn Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 I'm trying to keep this thing till it die,but I'm at that age that if its giving me too much trouble then I get rid of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1994SEV6 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 well what happened? Did your pan gasket somehow deteriorate? Is it a slow leak, a huge leak? To be completely honest, It's not worth taking the oil pan out. You either have to pull the engine, or completely disassemble the front. IF you can somehow slide a gasket between the pan and the block with about 1/4 inch of space, then go for it, but otherwise, don't. If it's a small leak, just leave it. Add a pint of oil every 3 months or whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackspawn Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 The bottom of the truck is always wet also it fall on the exhaust pipe causing it to smoke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1994SEV6 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 whaaa??? how much oil do you think you are leaking? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewebster Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 There is no gasket, it's just RTV (plus the rubber end pieces). You only really need to remove the front diff. A solid day's work though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unccpathfinder Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Check valve cover gaskets first...then maybe rear main seal...oil pan gasket sucks to change and yes with the vg30 4x4 u have to basically drop everything out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nunya Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 If it's a small leak, just leave it. Add a pint of oil every 3 months or whatever. now there's a horrible piece of unhelpful advice... Leaks should NOT be ignored, especially if FLAMMABLE oil is getting onto exhaust. I know here in PA alone that's a no-no for safety inspection so "just leave it" don't fly. As stated it's a bit of work but you have to drop the front diff and the gasket itself is RVT (vg30 as people are stating here and ka motors I can vouch are the same way in a 4x) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1994SEV6 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) now there's a horrible piece of unhelpful advice... Leaks should NOT be ignored, especially if FLAMMABLE oil is getting onto exhaust. I know here in PA alone that's a no-no for safety inspection so "just leave it" don't fly. As stated it's a bit of work but you have to drop the front diff and the gasket itself is RVT (vg30 as people are stating here and ka motors I can vouch are the same way in a 4x) oh yeah. you're totally right. I didn't want the FLAMES to jump from drop to drop and blow up his truck. I mean, the 2 minutes between drips is a HUGE fire hazard. Damn, this is probably why there are so many fatalities on the road. I wonder what people could do to prevent it? I have an idea!!! If we all used water instead of engine oil, then NOTHING would EVER catch on fire. And while we're at it, let's make lighters and stoves illegal. Toasters too, boy, those are a doosey. Also, **** (insert insult there) notice how he mentioned the exhaust AFTER I said to ignore it. Edited December 21, 2011 by 1994SEV6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nunya Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 It's a fact of safety and fixing things CORRECTLY... a suggestion of ignoring an issue is completely pointless and useless. If your mechanic tells you that is how he fixed ANY issue, be it an oil leak, dry rotted tire, cracked brake shoe... (I hope your starting to get the point here) I'm pretty sure you ain't gonna be very happy with paying him. directly from the forum guidelines: 4. If you do not know the answer, you don't have to answer. There is no shame in not knowing an answer, but if you misinform people it can hurt us all. You may think I am personally attacking your every post but you must remember that just because you could care less about safety issues you think are pointless, posting 'ignore it' is the exact opposite of of being a helpful part of this place. Safety on our roadways IS important as most people here DD their trucks let alone use them for other offroad uses. Please remember this and think before hitting enter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefarious Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) yeah you can do it but it's not very fun. unhook the engine mounts and jack up the motor as high as u can get it. undo the pan and let it drop a few inches. then you can carefully scrape off all of the rtv WITHOUT DROPPING ANY IN THE OIL PAN, and clean and re-apply the rtv silicone... it's not fun but if you do it that way u don't have to drop the diff....which is NOT fun...lol either way there is not much fun involved...sorry to say. It is less of a hassle if u drop the diff.... dropping the diff is easy..putting it back is not so easy..... Edited December 21, 2011 by Nefarious 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1994SEV6 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) yeah you can do it but it's not very fun. unhook the engine mounts and jack up the motor as high as u can get it. undo the pan and let it drop a few inches. then you can carefully scrape off all of the rtv and clean and re-apply the rtv silicone... it's not fun but if you do it that way u don't have to drop the diff....which is NOT fun...lol That's probably the best way to do it actually. If you can life the engine up a little bit, then you don't even have to remove that many components. Instead of jacking it up, I would think you would need an engine hoist because you wouldn't want to jack it up on the oil pan, and I don't know of any other possible jacking point. Besides that you wouldn't want to jack it up on the part what you want to take off. Anyway, lifting the engine up would require unbolting the motor mounts, unbolting and sliding the transmission back (I would think? You can't pull the engine up with the transmission, unless you get the transmission prepared for removal), oh wait..you WOULD have to remove the transmission. There's no way to get in there and get access to the engine without removing the transmission. Unless you want to disconnect everything and entirely pull the engine. There's just no space. I guess you COULD do it, but you would cut your hands like nobody's business and that's not safe. We can't have that. Actually, dropping the front differential wouldn't be that bad. I did it half way. There are two 17mm bolts with nuts on the other side holding the cross member up. Get these bolts out and the front diff will drop down a few inches. Then there are 3 bolts holding the front diff to the cross member. You need to remove these. These are also 17mm, but you will need a deep 17mm socket and you better not slip and round those nuts. Then you have to disconnect the CV axles and remove the front diff from the front cross member with the bushing. I think that's all? Oh yeah, remove the secondary drive shaft of course. Nvm. the point Nefarious made was that it's hard to put back in. I guess because it's heavy? Edited December 21, 2011 by 1994SEV6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefarious Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) Yeah putting the diff back up in place is pretty awkward and it's really heavy. A lot heavier than it looks... I jack up the engine from the bottom right on the front of the transmission there is big hump. It will lift the engine up and stuff it up to the firewall. You are jacking up the engine via the transmission (right at the front) so it doesn't interfere with the oil pan. Done it many times no issues at all. You leave the transmission attached to the engine and it just tilts up. You can leave the trans crossmember alone as well. There is a lot of flex in that bushing holding it to the crossmember. Edited December 21, 2011 by Nefarious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefarious Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) Just unbolt the MIDDLE engine mount bolts (the 2 that hold the frame mount to the rubber bit), I find them much easier to put back in after from inside the fender wells. Then start jacking up on the trans bump. Do it slowly and carefully and make sure nothing is getting caught up. I never had any issues but just be safe about it and it would help to have someone at the top to tell you when you are getting close and to make sure no wires are getting caught up or anything. You can't get the pan out of there but you can drop it down enough to re-do the gasket. It's just very tight and not much fun, but I prefer that to removing the diff!!! Edited December 21, 2011 by Nefarious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackspawn Posted December 21, 2011 Author Share Posted December 21, 2011 Wow, thanks guys.. I see this is not a 2-3 hour job.YEAH!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewebster Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I dropped the diff to do the oil pan, and it WAS a big pain to get it back in, even with my very strong friend to help. But I would definitely do it again because scraping the old gasket is a heinous pain. I would never do it with the pan in the truck. But I was pretty meticulous about getting all the old RTV off so it would seal for sure. Maybe you don't need to be so picky about it... hmm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1994SEV6 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I dropped the diff to do the oil pan, and it WAS a big pain to get it back in, even with my very strong friend to help. But I would definitely do it again because scraping the old gasket is a heinous pain. I would never do it with the pan in the truck. But I was pretty meticulous about getting all the old RTV off so it would seal for sure. Maybe you don't need to be so picky about it... hmm. the purpose of a gasket is to mold and seal, right? I'm sure a little bit of leftover gasket don't hurt anything, but it is definitely better to get more off. The way I see it, you can spend 5 minutes getting 80% of it off, or you can spend an hour getting 95% of it off. In the end, it's almost the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewebster Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I think I spent more like 2 hours getting 99.9% off, but yeah I guess I was worried about not being able to clean the oily used RTV well enough to get the new stuff to stick. Not sure what happens if you wipe it down with acetone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unccpathfinder Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Be careful with front diff....I almost lost my pinky over one.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
94 Pathy Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Mine is leaking. Thinking about checking the valve cover gaskets first. They don't look like they are leaking....that leads me to the pan leaking. Not liking the options of replacing the damn seals. Can't get enough out of it if it blows up or catches fire. DAMN! Guess there is no other options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 1, 2023 Share Posted May 1, 2023 On 12/20/2011 at 2:28 PM, blackspawn said: I've check everywhere on this site to change out my oil pan gasket. Need to know if I need to take apart the whole frontend just to change a oil pan gasket? I love this rig but I'm very close to @!*% canning it. Simple stuff takes too long on this engine ie..oil pan gasket,valve cover gasket just ridicules. Yeah i have the same problem with every damn thing i work on. I have a 78 f150, big truck small engine rear wheel drive still sucks to work on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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