oil pan removal question

[wick22]

57 truck with a sbc and th350 trans it has the tubular engine crossmember my question will the oil pan come out with ease or will motor have to be jacked up or fight with things to remove oil pan?

[OrrieG]

Unless yours is sitting very low, the TH bellhousing will only move an inch or so, so you get to unbolt the trans and torque converter then lift the engine. One of the reasons I went with a stock front mount. Maybe you got lucky and the crossmember was only bolted in with tack welds on the slip tube???

As long as you have everything cut loose to lift it a couple of inchs may as well pull the hood and take it all the way out. Getting the gaskets to seal with it in place is a challenge. I remember pulling a couple of 235 pans with the original Orrie as child and learned a whole bunch of new words he told me not to use around Grandma!

[mr48chev]

Wear a shirt that you don't care about as you will probably throw it away when you are done and eye protection isn't a bad thing to wear either.

You are probably going to have to take the bolts out of the motor mounts and raise the engine enough to put a short piece of 2x4 between the mounts and the crossmember. It helps to turn the crank so that the front counterweights are up too but it's rather hard to tell where they are at until you get to that point.

I'd spend the extra money for the one piece pan gasket. I have no idea of how many pans I have had off engines over the years but it does get a bit tricky trying to keep four pieces of a pan gasket in place and get the pan back up into place.

Make sure you have distributor and fan blade clearance before raising the engine up along with making sure your hoses have enough flex to allow for the engine being raised.