Well, since I've never contributed before, I guess I might as well do this.

For anyone that's talked to me in the last week, you'll know that I slid off the road into a curb earlier this week, and messed up parts of my undercarriage.

As a result of that accident, my car is also now having an oil starvation issue..

So as a result, I've decided I'm going to drop and reseal my leaking oil pan, and see if there's any internal damage I didn't notice during my initial inspection.

I'll keep this thread updated with pictures and how-tos as I progress. For anyone's that's interested in doing this in the future. I know this isn't much, but every little bit helps, right?

This is what I've found so far:



Not a hard part to tear down...but not necessarily an easy job, either.

 

It's pretty much straight forward, but feel free to ask me if you have any questions. Just did mine about a month ago. Have fun!

 

Did you do your upper too, or just the lower? I think I'm going to hit both while I'm under there.

Whoever "resealed" the pans last time did a terrible job. It holds oil about as well as a paper towel.

 

Is your upper leaking as well? I understand that is a pretty complicated fix.

 

I don't know if it is or isn't. I haven't been able to inspect it yet.

If I end up having to tear my whole engine down to fix this noise, well. Opportunity.

Upgraded cams...valves...head studs...the opportunities are endless. Well. Sort of.

 

I resealed the upper as well. I had the flywheel off so I thought I might as well replace the rear main as well. Then I thought, I might as well do the front and rear pan seals and liquid gasket. It's easier with the tranny still in the car, but it wasn't too bad. Just take your time. And SOAK the exhaust bolts with PB Blaster well ahead of attempting to take it off.

 

I just re-sealed my lower pan a few weeks ago and she's still leaking I think I'm going to have to replace it. Good luck with yours

 

The upper pan removal is kind of a biatch if you ask me. GL if you are doing it on the ground.

But it would be a good time to invest in new rods and rod bolts if you are doing the upper pan.

 

Has anyone installed an oil pan spacer or high-capcity aluminum oil pan?

 

Oh, no. The car will be up in the air.

I may or may not remove the upper pan depending on if it's damaged/leaking. If it's not, I may just leave it alone, depending on what I find when I drop the lower pan.

 

The car will be up in the air?!? Now there's no excuse for tackling the job.

 

Yes.

Having friends with lifts FTW.

When I put my headers on the 6MT, the car will definitely be on a two-post. Doing the headers on my 4AT on jackstands wasn't bad...just tiring. Too tiring.

Hopefully I'll be getting started within the next hour or so...

 

Hmm. Fortunate. I'm jealous, but just a little.

Having my lower oil pan replaced in the Spring, so I'm curious what you find.

 

Geez, man. You still haven't started? You procrastinate worse than me. And I thought I was the king of putting things off.

 

I've been dying to get started. My friend's got a few projects on his lifts that he's finishing up, so that's been holding me back.

 

I need a new lower pan as mine's been modified for the turbo set-up.

What's wrong with your pan John? Run over some kids did you?

 

+1

 

Upper and lower oil pans are not to hard to do, just time consuming. I take my time and clean off all the old RTV, that is key to getting the pans not to leak again. Most shops half a$$ this step and you get leaks over time. I've replaced the upper/lower pans and rear main seal under the car with jack stands and a cherry picker holding up the engine. It totally sucked and took me an afternoon but the car never leaked oil again out of the oil pans.

For the upper pan you will need two of the oil o-rings and the front & rear rubber lip seals.

I would also recomened a 4th gen lower oil pan they are thicker steel, rust slower, and the oil drain is on the passenger side. So the old oil pours out of the way if you have Cattman headers.

 

Been keeping on eye on it over the last couple of years. It's been getting seriously corroded. This year, both my mechanic and my dealership recommended replacement soon, so I'm planning on replacement this Spring.

Just preventative maintenance. Nothing exciting.

 

Update:

No pics...my hands were nasty. But this is what we found:

Upon dropping the lower oil pan, we found that whoever re-sealed the pan had apparently gone a little trigger-happy with the RTV, and the RTV had actually oozed into the inside of the pan.

This resulted in the sump filter being almost completely clogged with permatex. So that means there could potentially be permatex all the way up into my oil pump and beyond...it's hard to say without dropping the upper pan.

I'm in the process of stripping all of the permatex off of the mating surfaces. I'm going to use a Felpro gasket from AutoZone ($8.00) to re-seal the lower to the upper.

With the sump filter cleaned, if the noise issue doesn't clear up, I guess the next step will be to pull the motor and start tearing things down...

 

Well, got the car put back together, and it's still knocking.

Looks like it's time to tear everything down...

Expect a new thread soon.

Hopefully I can pull some money together and do a nice, NA build.

 

Oh ****. It sounds like RTV got into the oil passages, perhaps clogging the oil pump. Sounds like you're going to need those bearings after all. What does your oil pressure look like?

This happened to me once when we were doing a reseal on a Northstar a few year back. It needed the oil pan resealed, which meant pulling the motor in those piles of crap. So, the motor was pulled and completely resealed. When we fired it up a week later, the freaking thing had no oil pressure. We then pulled it out (again) and ripped it open, only to find out the idiot who worked on it used so much silicone that the oil passages were plugged. We then replaced the oil pump and cleaned all the excess silicone, resealed the engine again, and fired it up. Luckily this time it had the proper amount of oil pressure. Problem was solved. Long store short, over applying silicone to an engine block can make one's worst nightmares come true.

 

That's exactly what the guy who owns the shop said. He figures the car probably sucked the RTV up and right into the pump.

But the oil pressure seems okay...I haven't used anything to monitor it. But the light stays off, so I don't think the pump is the issue. Though it's not going to hurt to take a look while I have the motor torn apart.

The noise I'm getting honestly sounds like a stuck valve slapping against the piston to me. But I guess I won't be totally sure where it really is coming from until I get in and listen to everything with a stethescope.

 

Stuck valve hitting a piston? Dude, if that's the case, you mind as well get a new motor.

 

I'm not sure. Jumping to a stuck valve may be drawing conclusions too quickly. The motor runs too smooth for a stuck valve, the more I think about it. I would expect it to idle rough if the valve was stuck opened or close.

I haven't listened to anything up close. But it sounds like it's coming from the rear bank, I know that.

There wasn't any metal in the oil pan last night when I dropped it, so I'm guessing whatever the damage is, I caught it pretty early on. Or it's not in the bottom end. One or the other.