Yesterday, my brother and I replaced my oil pan gasket on my 95 D-tec LX Contour. Hey, I'm a stud - what can I say!
I basically read the posts from others, especially the excellent one from PA 3L SVT, then reviewed my Haynes and Ford Shop Manuals. Went without a hitch. To assist others who may be contemplating this, here are a few details from our experience.
1. Gasket looks pretty high-tech. Stamped aluminum body with orange silicone rubber molded onto it.
2. Bought a 2.5 ton car jack for use with my jack stands to raise the car initially, but ended up using a friends Rhino Ramps and found them to be all that was necessary. These allow you to drive your car right up without hitting spoiler. My old metal ramps are worthless. BTW, found out that when jacking the front of the car, place the jack under the reinforced part of the frame rail -not just the frame rail. I put a small dent in mine before realizing this. The reinforced area looks like it has an extra piece of metal welded to it. My shop manual was not clear on this, and I had never used one before.
3. Liquid wrench and a breaker bar is needed for the Y-pipe bolts. Per shop manual, I replaced the Y-pipe to Woven stainless coupling gasket. Not sure this was necessary in hindsight. New gasket was $5.40 from Ford Dealer.
4. I left the car in my garage for two days prior to doing the job. Wanted to make sure the engine/exhaust was COLD and that as much oil as possible had dripped into the pan (less on my face that way).
5. I was able to get a 13mm deep socket onto 14 of 15 oil pan bolts with no problem. For the 15th which is occluded by the subframe, just use a 13mm open ended wrench and come at it from the outer side of the subframe. You will find this MUCH easier if you remove a single screw holding a splash guard over the serpentine belt. This allows it to pivot nicely away from your hand.
6. I had previously used some heavy duty trash bags and duct tape to make a drip cloth for under the car. This worked well. In my case, the amount of oil dripping once the pan was removed was minimal.
7. I think the inside of my pan would have made a good Amsoil commercial. Pretty clean after 107K miles!
8. After thoroughly cleaning mating surfaces (brake cleaner worked well), place your new gasket on the pan and insert all but the two bolts which are over the subframe. The gasket will hold them in place for you. Much easier than fumbling around trying to insert bolts under the car!
9. Did not understand why RTV was needed in two places - obvious now. RTV covers the seam where front cover meets block. Seam is not perfect - the RTV compensates for this. I used Permetex Ultra-Black. Sensor safe and others on this site said it was good to use.
10. As stated by PA 3L SVT, the PITA bolt is just torqued by feel. Forget about u-joints and fancy socket couplings. Aint gonna happen.
11. Oops - this out of order but I don't want to risk losing this massive message! When removing the two small nuts holding the y-pipe mount, loosen both just a tad before completely removing one. I took one off completely first, and the other was absolutely seized. Almost rounded it before brother suggested putting first one on and retightening. The frozen one then came right off. Probably standard car stuff, but I just didnt think about it. Used new nuts upon re-assembly.
12. One person COULD do the job (and probably has), but TWO = GOOD. The y-pipe is tough to remove and re-install. Also, its a lot easier having someone handing tools to you as opposed to constantly crawling under and out from under your rig.
I got a good look at the front cover of my motor while doing this job - plenty of oil running down the right side of the front cover. Maybe its something OTHER than the actual front cover seal?
All in all, I'm pretty pleased. Never been much of a car guy but got the confidence from this site and put it to good use. Really appreciate all of your support.
For my next project, I was going to clean my intake manifold, but I am thinking that this would not be good due to that lousy wire harness! Something to think about.
Regards,
Jab
