I'm getting ready to dive into this tomorrow, Is the oil pan gasket reusable? I've heard it is rubber steel reinforced, so you can reuse it, but I have also heard otherwise. Anybody reuse it? Or should it be replaced. As far as I know, this is the first time the pan has been dropped in the 112k miles on the truck. Any other tips or pointers that aren't mentioned on the pavementsucks DIY? For those of you that have replaced the main seal, has it held up since? Also, after I replace it, I am going to switch to mobil 1 fully synthetic. Will this decrease the life of the rear main seal, or does fully synthetic only pose a problem after you have been using dino oil for a while.

Thanks fellas!

 

i suggest replacing the oil pan gasket, its gonna cost ya only a few dollars, also use some rtv, then you wont have to worry about it leaking. you should be fine switching to mobil one

 

Thanks cowboy I will just go ahead and replace it then.

 

+1 on replace it. its 13 years old and will have hardening of the arteries. its also sort of a pita to drop the pan, so you don't want to have to redo it. +1 on a RTV at the seams.

for reinstall, somebody had a good tip to tie the gasket to the pan bolt holes in a couple of spots with fishing line or string to keep it from slipping out of alignment.

 

Thanks dhvaughan, what exactly do you mean by the seams? The parts of the pan that are semi circles in the front and rear? I was thinking about using fishing line or thread to line up the holes. Might just do that! Any tips to maneuvering the pan out to clear the cross member and oil pickup?

 

never mind, my bad. i was thinking the front and rear was a separate piece with seams. but its all one piece. the front and rear has big formed u shapes made out of rubber. i think i did smear on a light coat of rtv but that's probably not recommended.

reinstalling is not hard, but it is awkward and you can't see everything at once. i had to get wifey to guide the front end into place while i slid it in from the rear. that sounds kind of bad...

 

You really only need to put RTV on the "corners" of the gasket where it makes the 90 degree bends by the transmission and at the timing cover. I had no issues dropping the pan with the engine in the bay, but I did drive the front end up on ramps so I could use a creeper easily. Tying the the gasket to the pan through the bolt holes in about four points made it really easy to reinstall. Just cut those strings and remove them before you tighten all the bolts down.

May I suggest that if you're going in that far, to also replace the oil pump. Even a Melling High Volume pump won't run you that much more, and it's only 30 more minutes of work. If the old pump fails in the next year, you'll kick your own *** for not replacing it now. I've never had an issue with the sump going dry either, so don't buy that junk if somebody tells you that a high volume pump can drain the sump dry. You're probably not spinning the engine 6000 rpm's for hours at a time to be worried.

Check that oil pump pickup screen before you reinstall and get it completely clean, I had a couple of metal fragments caught up in mine. It looked like it was welding slag probably in there from the factory.

That Mobil One is great stuff and dirt cheap at Wally World. If you develop a leak using it, it's more than likely that the Mobil One dissolved a lump of sludge that was blocking a leak that already existed.

If you've run dino oil all this time, you might think about dumping some seafoam in the old batch of oil currently in there and driving about an hour on it. Get that engine good and hot and slop that seafoam mixture everywhere and dump the old oil while the engine is still pretty warm. That'll chase a bunch of the sludge and coking out if there. I'd also change the oil filter after 1500 miles on the first run of a syn oil and top off the engine.

 

Thanks guys

aim4squirrels, I used mobil 1 the last change, and so forth. I did it all today, and had no sludge what so ever. Very clean, but now the leak is even worse. I am hoping it is just the oil pan gasket. I have to dig back into it tomorrow...

 

Turns out it was the oil pan gasket, didn't get the rear lip seated correctly on the pan, pinched a part of it off when I tightened the bolts. Pinched a 2inch section out of the gasket, so I went and got a new one and threw it in, no more leaks.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone and their pointers. You guys are great!

Note to self and anyone else attempting to do this: You will be under the truck for a few hours, invest in some good safety goggles because a lot road grime,dirt,oil, etc... will fall in your face.