Hi Everyone, I have a leak. I keep looking around the oil pan, seems to be coming from there. Can anyone tell me before I get started, what I have to do to drop the oil pan and put a new gasket in. I see that the exhaust pipes are in the way, anything else that I didn't see at my quick look. I'm really hoping that the last oil change I didn't tighten the filter enough......LOL My luck that won't be the case. Thanks for all that can give some out look.

 

vai, you are asking a loaded question here and you are probably not going to like the answers I am about to give you. Here are your options:

1) to replace the oil pan gasket like the JTIS says, you have to drop the transfer case out of the car so you can get at 1 bolt that holds the oil pan in place. As you can imagine, this is a very labor intensive thing (about 16 hours start to finish).

2) drill a hole in the support bracket for the transfer case that is just big enough to fit the needed socket through to pull the bolt out that is hidden behind the bracket. Some people question this as you are affecting a structural piece of the transfer case. People have had it done and claim that there is no negative effects. Your call.

3) Remove the exhaust piping like you said (this applies to the previous 2 also), but on that last bolt, you back it out most of the way and then you use a dremel tool or some other cutoff tool to chop the head of the bolt off. From there, you can remove the oil pan and then you just have to remove the remaining part of the bolt. From there, you can get a shorter bolt to re-assemble everything and all goes back together just fine.

Your call. Either way, you are probably looking at about 8 hours of work however you go at a minimum.

 

Did you try tightening the bolts down to torque specs? you might get lucky, a few here have had that luck... I have a small leak too but I still need to identify its cause. I tried to tighten mine but they were probably over tightened before... (maybe leading to the leak)

 

Thanks guys, I'm going under it today to see if I can locate the leak, wish me luck. The one thing I don't understand is why all of a sudden this thing started leaking in the first place. Perhaps I'll find the answer today. Thanks again guys for the feedback.

 

If there isn't a river coming out of mine, It can wait.


Why do they leak? My sig line explains it. Not sure if it is a hairball or a hissy fit, but...