Removing oil pan on 2G AWD

[kenamond]

Is there some trick to removing the two oil pan bolts on the rear, driver's side of the pan. They are above the front-left intermediate shaft right next to the bearing bracket.

I can't see any way to get a socket or wrench in there (not enough clearance between the bearing bracket and the pan). Do I have to pull the entire front-left drivetrane to pull the oil pan off? I already had to take the exhaust and transfer case off, but this is getting beyond rediculous.

Everyone was quick to tell me that it was a super simple job to remove my oil pan, but I wonder if any of them actually ever did it before. When misinformation on the forum leads someone down a 2 hour teardown of their car, that sucks. My Haynes manual doesn't mention anything about having to pull the front left shaft, so I'm hoping there's some trick to it. C'mon, someone out there has done this.

 

[burntheblobs]

Now, this may be different since this is my experiance with my 1g awd, BUT, there should be a bracket with two bolts that holds that axle to the back of the block right around where your oil pan problem is. Look for that bracket in the Haynes manual if you are having trouble. If you unbolt that you can move the axle out of the way enough to get those bolts. I did it with the bracket still bolted up...a pain in the ass, but possible. For some reason removing that bracket is like hidden information. When I couldn't get my oil pan back ON because the bracket was in the way, finding that information was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

 

[kenamond]

Awesome. Yes, that's the bearing bracket. So the shaft coming out of the tranny has enough play to move that bearing assembly out of the way with the bearing bracket unbolted, and then I can fit a socket in there?

The tech article for removing the transfer unit on a 1G looked exactly like a 2G, so I figure (pray?) this is the same, too (the bearing bracket sounds the same).

You made my day!

 

[burntheblobs]

You get a good 2-3 inches of play in each direction once you get that bracket off it i recall correctly. And no problem for the advice. I just wish I had the info when I was doing my oil pan. I took off the oil pickup tube thinking it was clearance issue getting the pan back on...when reinstalling the tube I broke a bolt. Doh.

 

[kenamond]

The only reason I'm pulling the pan off is to look for a 2" piece of zip tie that I dropped into the head while securing my boost gauge vaccuum/boost line. The valve cover was off, because I broke it reinstalling a new gasket to fix the small leak (had rags over the head, but it's like that Final Destination movie where Death makes a sequence of events happen to get the damned ziptie into my motor). I just hope I can get it all back together without another mishap taking me off on some other fixit adventure. I'd have been done with my mods 6 weeks ago if it weren't for wrong parts shipping and evil zip ties.

Thanks again.

 

[burntheblobs]

Haha, im pulling off my entire oil pan again this week because its leaking after I just went in and did a LOT of work down there. The worst part is I probably used .6qts of my 1qt bottle of redline shockproof in the transfer case. Looks like ill be spending another $11 on that black gold. Same with the full synthetic engine oil I just put in.

 

[kenamond]

Well, the new 1G valve cover I got was $270, so I got you beat! It's VERY NICE compared to the stock 2G, though. It's one of those purchases I thank God for, because I couldn't convince my wife that I need to spend $270 so that stuff under the hood looks better. In this case, "Honey, it broke and I'm so pissed that I have to buy a new one - for $270 - man this car stuff is a pain. Smooch!" I also dumped a quart of Mobil One 5W-30 synthetic trying to flush the ziptie out of the oil return passage, so that's another few bucks (that's all I had in my garage at the time).

Oh well, as a result, my oil pan and transfer unit will be very clean when all is said and done (I can't help but clean the crap off of parts when I pull them off - that valve cover leak is to blame).