The oil pan project

Yep - it looks great. But the metal sure is thick! I can't believe that the leaky oil pan rusted through all that metal. Oh well, it's right out in the open, and 23 years takes its toll on metal.

Here's the game plan for tomorrow morning's repair:

1. Put the car on the ramps.
2. Drain all the oil as if it were an oil change.
3. Wrestle with the bolts that hold the oil pan to the engine.
4. Take a break after it ticks me off.
5. Return and remove the oil pan, scrape off the old gasket.
6. Set the new gaskets, then bolt on the new oil pan.
7. Refill the car with new oil and a new oil filter.
8. Go for a drive and leak oil no more!

Estimated total time of repair...four hours. Actual time of repair...four hours and some change. Average skill level needed (1 being filling your tires with air, 10 being a complete engine rebuild): 5
Patience level required: 7.5

100 M&M's says that I break a few rusted bolts in the process (making step 4 a lot longer).

UPDATE: Everything has been disassembled in two hours. So I'm making good time (according to my estimate. I was right about step four, but thankfully no bolts broke. I was just angry that I might have had to uninstall my exhaust, but I squeezed the pan out with millimeters to spare. I've got to pick up some RTV hi-temp silicone or a similar product on the way to work to finish this job, so everything will have to wait until Saturday.

Pics!

The part that has to be replaced. If you have ever changed your oil before, this part will look familiar to you - it's where the oil is drained (from that bolt). It is held in place 19 bolts and two studs. They were only torqued to about 4 ft/lbs, so they came off unbelievably easy.










With the pan and baffle removed, you can see into the inner workings of the car. This is from below the cylinder block. You can see the crankshaft, the counterbalances, and the four individual cylinder bores. The MR2 fires two cylinders at a time, so the outer cylinders are right now at the top of their cycle, while the middle two are at the bottom.










You can see the bottom of cylinder #4 at the top of its cycle.










UPDATE: Project completed

Apply Ultra Copper RTV gasket maker to the parts...




























And here it is all screwed back together!