Hello friends - I know from searching here (and elsewhere) that one cannot simply drop the oil pan on a 67 Camaro 327 V8 - oh no, that would be too easy. Can someone who has done it often post up the basic steps? Including how to best lift the engine up to gain the required amount of room without borrowing an engine hoist? Thanks in advance for any advice

I want to remove this ugly-@ss (and leaking) oil pan that was on there when I bought the car:


old beat up pan

with a nice brandy-new freshly painted pan, with felpro one piece gasket:


pretty new oil pan

Jack

 

If memory serves you can just barely do it by pulling the motor mounts and jacking it up on the tranny. Pull the dizzy first or at least the cap and rotor for firewall clearance.

 

Watch if you have mechanical fan with shroud, Loosen one of them and distributor cap.

 

As suggested, move dist cap, fan or shroud, fuel line at pump, mount thru-bolts.
Jack up engine at pan with wood, and place a 2X4 with four inch side vertical between engine and frames.
Turn timing mark to 5 o:clock position moving counterweights out of way of front pan when removing/installing.
Might help to remove starter and filter. Be safe and have a good time.

 

Point the dist rotor to the #4 plug wire.

 

My God what a PITA. I did as was suggested here and other places - of course drained the oil and removed the filter, discoed the fan shroud, tranny coolant lines at rad, removed dizzy cap and rotor, pulled the thru bolts out of the engine mounts (P/S car so that was a real bear on the D-Side), removed the shifter console plate on the inside of the car to give her some room to move around (PG car), put the timing mark at 5 - 6 o'clock, removed the idler arm at the frame to drop the steering linkage, discoed the exhaust at the head pipe connection to the headers (naturally one of those bolts busted during removal), used a piece of 2x8 scrap under the oil pan and started jacking - didn't get too far before it seemed like something was hanging up - plus the bottom of the old oil pan was getting a little deformed - so I had to regroup.

Looked like the after-market headers were the source of the interference (against the firewall) so had to pull the P-side off - that's a thankless job. I decided to use a bottle jack under the harmonic balancer (to spare my new oil pan when I would be taking this back down) so I had to make a little fixture out of a piece of 2x4 and some rubber roofing material I had laying around to cradle that (pic below), plus that meant I had to remove the sway bar because that blocked the little hole in the brace where my bottle jack post was going to go (lots of parts coming off now). Used a combination of wooden blocks and swear words and got the engine up as far as this sucker was going to go, which was still not as far as would allow a 2x4 on the long side under the engine mounts. But it was enough.

Oh and it turns out the D-side engine mount was 100% apart at the rubber, sucker was just floating on that side. So had to buy another one of those. Plus I was missing the battery cable oil pan clips - and since I was freshening those cables up "while I'm at it" I added those clips to my order.

Discoed the battery pos cable, took off the starter (more stuff coming off) - noticed that was missing the brace so added that to my parts order, removed the flywheel cover (and had to put some fresh Chevy orange on that), then finally set about removing the pan - damn those bolts up front are still in a tight spot. And one of them was missing - hmmm. Got that oil pan pried off and down, made even more of an oily mess, and set about cleaning off the old cork gasket (using a Fel Pro one piece with the new pan). Turns out the spot where the one oil pan bolt was missing up front was due to one being snapped off in the block. At a place where there is not direct drill access. Bought a 90 deg drill fixture from Home Depot, carefully drilled out that bolt stud, and re-threaded that hole.

Fel pro oil pan gasket kit comes with these neat pins at the four corners that hold the gasket in place and guide and hold the oil pan in place, but only used them up front to let the gasket set up against the block and permatex I laid down, too tall to slide the oil pan back in. But still a nice modern touch (I've done oil pans on SBs before - 65 Corvette in my garage too). Got the oil pan back on and sealed up good (fingers crossed), revisited it later for the final snug per instructions. Of course, a few days had gone by, so all the little parts I ordered were here. While the pan was off I replaced the busted engine mount. Lowered the engine, futzed around a bit getting the thru bolts in and snugged down (damn that PS unit at times like these). Did my battery cable work, reinstalled the P-side header, dizzy cap and rotor, swore a few more times for good measure, and done.

Drove the car around today to get it up to temp and see if there were any leaks - from the oil pan anyway - and it looks like it's holding up well, no leaks or drips, yet.



busted engine mount



harmonic balancer jack fixture



chevy orange makes everything pretty

 

Awesome! a PITA but you got it done,congrats!

 

Nice job. Yes, things are a PITA.

 

FYI the motor mount was a known issue and very dangerous. if you motor has a lot of torque it can stand the motor up and pull on the throttle cable making the engine go full throttle. It will keep going until the engine whines out. Some of the big blocks broke as soon as the tire where upgraded. GM had a bulletin on this and a kit that was added with a steel cable that strapped the motor down. Mine broke on me in the 90's lucky mine is a stick and I did not panic and just pushed the clutch in. Any mount you buy today will have the built in safety hook in the mount.

Sure seem like a LOT of work to avoid pulling the motor. Plus pulling the motor allows for replacement of front and rear mains. Back in the day I could pull most 60s V8s in under an hour as long as rust was not an issue. .

 

I hear you on pulling the motor - plus that would have allowed firewall clean-up, easier drilling for the oil pressure line (next project), and engine clean-up / repaint. BUT, I don't have an engine picker (yes, could have rented one) and don't have an engine stand - AND don't have a good place in my garage to work on the engine when on a stand without sending one of the old convertibles outside.