Another Vulcan Oil Pan Gasket Thread

[aspevacek]

IS there not a way to snake the gasket up in there and in plae with out totally removing the pan? I did several of the BMW X series cars (All wheel Drive) they have an axel shaft that goes thru the oil pan. What I did was raise the engine a bit, drop the pan covered the pan with paper towels and plastic to clean the block mating surface. Once everything up top was cleaned off I would uncover the pan clean it off and then snake the gasket into place. Make sure the gasket is clean and put it all together.

I would never use silicone on a rubber style gasket except at the corners, where you have break lines for assembly.

 

[LBPete]

No way to get the gasket around the oil pump and pickup. The pan has to come off. Besides that, the gasket has an aluminum core. It's not flexible at all.

- Pete

 

[aspevacek]

All BMW gaskets run a metal core. There are ways to work them around 99% of the time. With BMW you are running block with long sides and most of the cranks are tucked into the block. It was just an idea to fed thought on other ways to get around a problem.

 

[LBPete]

I've been working on the truck on and of for the last few weeks and have made some progress. I wound up dropping the transmission. If I had done that from the start I would have been done by now.

The new metal core Felpro gasket is in and the pan back on. It's a bit of a trick to torque the pan screws with my old beam type torque wrench. It's hard to get enough room and clearance to swing the wrench. The bolts need to be a lot tighter than I would have tightened them with out measuring torque.

Here are some pictures of the old gasket. It's very much a materials failure. The rubber just couldn't hack the heat. The the inner edge that is exposed to the hot oil is stiff and brittle. You can see the black band on the front of the gasket where it was sticking out. The gasket originally had a tab molded into it to help prevent it from working out in that area. That tab and the surrounding material completely peeled off and was in the bottom of the pan. There are other broken tabs and the areas where they are missing were pushing out as well. I assume that the revised Ford gasket was changed to a more heat resistant material.

With that in mind, using the OE type gasket, you probably could stretch it around the outside of the pan to get it in place without removing the pan completely. The down side of this trick, is you don't get to clean the debris from the gasket failing from inside the pan. The pickup screen on the oil pump is pretty coarce so there is some danger of that crap getting sucked into the pump.

As a side note, I make a quick and dirty trans adapter for my floor jack. It worked a lot better than it looks. It's a piece of 3/4" plywood with some 2X4s screwed to it. I made a collar to adapt it to the jack so it would swivel. It made taking the trans out a one man job.

- Pete

 

[LBPete]

Just a quick followup. I've been driving it for awhile and it is nice and dry, no leaks. Almost immediately after starting it up, the check engine light came on. That was an oh shit moment. Turns out I didn't have the rear O2 sensor connector snapped together tightly. A simple fix.

So, lessons learned. If you have a 2WD, bite the bullet and pull the trans and flywheel/flex plate. It's not that big of a job and it will allow you to get the pan off to clean. I did use a cherry picker to raise the engine. You can get it higher when the trans is out. I blocked it up with some cut off pieces of 2x4 under the motor mounts. I could get two under each motor mount by slotting the lower one to fit around the studs. That raised the engine 3". The only engine stuff that needed to be disconnected, besides the starter, transmission, exhaust y pipe and flywheel, was the snorkel tube and the radiator fan shroud. I just took it loose and let it float with the fan as the engine raised up.

Hope this helps anyone that needs to do this job.

- Pete

 

[Hawk1339]

Just a quick followup. I've been driving it for awhile and it is nice and dry, no leaks. Almost immediately after starting it up, the check engine light came on. That was an oh shit moment. Turns out I didn't have the rear O2 sensor connector snapped together tightly. A simple fix.

So, lessons learned. If you have a 2WD, bite the bullet and pull the trans and flywheel/flex plate. It's not that big of a job and it will allow you to get the pan off to clean. I did use a cherry picker to raise the engine. You can get it higher when the trans is out. I blocked it up with some cut off pieces of 2x4 under the motor mounts. I could get two under each motor mount by slotting the lower one to fit around the studs. That raised the engine 3". The only engine stuff that needed to be disconnected, besides the starter, transmission, exhaust y pipe and flywheel, was the snorkel tube and the radiator fan shroud. I just took it loose and let it float with the fan as the engine raised up.

Hope this helps anyone that needs to do this job.

- Pete

Summer of 2011 I did a pilot bearing replacement on my 93 (along with clutch and other things) and while I was in there with the flywheel off I replaced a rusting oilpan, a leaky gasket, and a tired oil pump. I didn't have to lift the engine but it was quite a wrestling match to remove and replace the pan. I unbolted the old pump with the pan dropped a few inches and mounted the new pump with the new pan in close position.

The new gasket is the Felpro PermaDry P/N OS30717R. Since then no leaks, not even an ooze. Very satisfied with that gasket. A little pricey (now $35 at Rock Auto) but well worth it. To anyone replacing that gasket I would advise to pay attention to the bolt tightening sequence and the torque. No gasket, even the best one, will seal properly if distorted because of careless installation.