[540 Olds]

Well, we started on this head job and have to pull front cover to replace one of the chain guides..I defintely picked the wrong week to give up cussing!!! '

Question is..Do I HAVE TO remove the oil pan to get the front cover off?? We have all the bolts loose,including the three that go up on the bottom of front cover, but there seems to be something hanging up at the bottom on the center/passenger side of the cover. We can pry the cover left and right, and it will come almost an inch back from the top, but something's hanging it up on the bottom...

Does anyone know if there's a locator stud on the lip of the oil pan?? This is a real PITA as we can't see anything obvious. It's a 2WD.

So, does the oil pan have to be removed..?? Can it be be pry'd down if we loosen a few bolts near the front?? Anyone with info, we'd appreciate it.

Thanks, Bob

 

[Undead Rado]

I read in someone's thread that motor mounts had to be loosened and tip the engine a bit to pull the pan... Idk though I haven't done it myself

 

[540 Olds]

Well we found out what was "hanging" the timing cover on....and also why the oil pan has to come off. In all the reading and searching I've done for this head swap/timing chain no one ever made it real clear what was going on "behind the cover", ie, the oil pump connection.

After removing all the timing cover bolts, the cover still won't come off because the oil pump pickup tube is bolted to the inside of the cover; this is why the pan has to come off. As "Undead" stated in previous post, we had to lift engine to get enough clearance to get pan off. We have a 2WD so we tried to lift passenger side about 2 inches, but it didn;t work, so we removed both motor mount bolts, attached lift and lifted engine about 3"..that was enough to get pan off. After that you have to remove the three 10MM bolts holdin pickup on; one at the front of the cover, and two under the engine girdle.

Overall this has been a frustrating job because we had no idea of how it all went together/came apart. Purchased new chain guides and tensioner and will attempt to put it back together tomorrow.

The factory gasket is just sealant...very good stuff. I can't wait to try and get everything all lined up from underneath the car.!!!

For those who have read and searched, TAKE NOTE of the warning about letting the timing chain go "slack" thereby releasing the RATCHETING tensioner!!! A basic head gasket job woiuld not be too bad if you can keep the chain tight. Once you drop the chain, you are into a front cover and oil pan removal...genuine PITA. These engines are not like the "old school" V8's where it didn't matter so much what order you did things.

We now have to put the head on, Then do timing gears, chain and install front cover, THEN install oil pickup tube and put oil pan back on. I guess it's like anything else; once you do a few it's "obvious", but first time around required a lot of searching and phone calls.

If we didn;t have a lift I would say this job would be classified as almost unable to do in the driveway unless you hired a few Chinese acrobats to get to the bolts. We debated pulling the engine, becausehaving to put the oil pan back on in the vehicle didn;t look like fun, BUT after looking we decided against that for two reasons.
1) I couldn't see a "normal" way to get to the converter bolts as they are sorta recessed back in the flywheel/flexplate area...not like a normal flat flexplate. With the oil pan out of the way I may have been able to get to them...I don;t know.
2)I realized if we put the engine together out of the car, then tried to mate it back to the tranny, I wouldn;t be able to get to the converter bolts because the oil pan would be on..I couldn't see an easy way to get clearance to those bolts with the oil pan on, and I didn;t want to pull tranny and engine, so we scrapped that idea.

Im gonna take some pics tomorrow and try to post them so the next poor "newby" with a bad head/timing chain problem can get an idea of what's going on.

Bob

 

[Undead Rado]

I have a head in the mail right now, should make it in the next day or so, I don't have a chain tool on hand so I'm going to make sure I have someone there to keep tension on the chain so it stays in place while changing them over. Hopefully all goes well.

 

[bk2life]

pics?

 

[1BADI5]

I've had the pleasure of removing the head on an 07..........its a task for sure.

The key for sure is having the right tools.....if not, its not going to be fun

 

[gway]

One perk to being SASed. I don't have the crossmember under the oil pan. The oil pan has to be dropped for 1 little bolt holding the pickup tube to the oil pump. I think they make a tool to hold the timing chain to keep from having to pull the cover. You can do the converter bolts. I just did it last week. I used the open end side of a 18mm to break them free. Then flipped it over and used the gear wrench ratchet side. It worked pretty well. Just gotta use it at an angle and make sure your on the nut real well.