Steelcityfan29

I have the front of my jeep jacked up on jackstands by the frame and the suspension is hanging as I read earlier however I still cant pull my oil pan out it seems to be just high enough to not get under the edge of the transmission.

Are there any tricks I am missing? I thought about taking the steering stablizer off but I took the nut with the cotter pin out and couldnt budge the bolt/stud out of the bar there to get that shock/stablizer out.

Apprecaite any help thanks much.. I will be drinkin a beer awaiting a reply.

Cherokee 4.0

the steering stablizer you have to put a wrench on the other side to get it out, its treaded through the bar if i remember correctly...

fantic238

Is that you in the avatar?
Unbolt the upper shock bolts (under the hood) to get more lowering.
For the steering stab. you need to hammer the bar where the bolt is seated, it will just pop out, keep the nut on to avoid it hitting in your face when it comes out.

Mike H.

I'd recommend disconnecting your swaybar end links to gain droop before messing with steering.
At 2.5" of lift with sway bar disconnected my pan came out rather easily (with starter removed)

atomic-xj

I wanted to follow up on this thread. I have jacked the XJ up, but cannot get the oil pan clear. Next step is to remove the sway bar and see if that gets me anything.

Any other advice?

Does the steering stabilizer need to come off? And is the steering stabilizer threaded through the linkage, or just press fitted in there? I pulled the nut off, but the steering stabilizer will not budge. WD40d the hell out of it, so we'll see whos who tomorrow.

Thanks

mike albo

x2 on unbolting upper shock bolts,take the starter out,undo sway bar links,let it hang.

Cherokee 4.0

if you jacked it up on the axles instead of the body, your defeating the purpose of jacking it up, flex the suspension out so you can get to the oil pan.

spikeypuck

on my 85 i just had to pull the starter. the chilton book said i had to disconect the exhaust pipe as well, but i got it out with some wiggling without doing that.
im not so smart and had the jack on the pumpkin, and the stands under the frame. mabey i just had beginners dumb luck.

Cherokee 4.0

ha i did my oil pan gasket in 8 minutes yesterday

helps my motor was lying on the ground

Mike H.

if you do not have an impact wrench, removing the lower shock bolts is a million times less frustrating.

atomic-xj

All right, I did it! What a pain in the **** though. If the steering stabilizer would come off easily, I think this would be a relatively painless job. Ah well, some engineer at jeep should be made to do 1000 of these jobs as penance. In my wrangler, this is a stupid simple operation, drop exhaust, unbolt pan. Don't even have to jack it up.

Thanks for all the advice, what ended up working was removing the lower shock mounts (couldnt get the impact over the upper shock mount on the driver side...the master cylinder is in the way). Disconnecting the sway bar (I ended up unbolting the bolts that hold it to the frame, then tied it up to keep it out of the way). After that, I jacked the thing up until the front wheels were just barely off the ground, put the jack stands under it, then unbolted the oil pan. It will not come out straight towards the transmission, you have to work on twisting it sideways. I also took off the thin plate that covers the flywheel, not sure if it was necessary....you will have to loosen the exhaust to get this all the way off. As a side note, with this much clearance between oil pan and axle you can actually do almost all the work you need to for the rear main seal without dropping the pan....but you may as well to clean it off. I found rust under all the grime, so I am sanding it down and repainting it before it goes back on. After that, the rear main seal was relatively painless. I recommend getting the one from the Jeep dealership....yeah its twice as much, but the top comes pre soaped, and it really just slides right in!

Hope this helps someone else in the future.

Thanks for all the help.

What it feels like to pull the pan ----->

Cherokee 4.0

This makes no sense

atomic-xj

I understand.............If you can't get the impact over the top, or you don't have an impact, the regular wrench just spins the shock, and the bolt won't come loose.....ask me how I know....I just tried this today. You can't get a strap wrench around the spinning part (on mine) because it has a solid plastic shield

Cherokee 4.0

if you do not have an impact wrench, removing the lower shock bolts is a million times less frustrating.

re read what he said word for word

Mike H.

Cherokee 4.0...
When working with hand tools...
Removing the bolts at the bottom of the shock, where it attaches to the axle bracket, is much easier than than removing the crush nut on top of the stud inside the engine bay.

I'm glad Atomic understood... I thought it was pretty clear.

Atomic,
Glad you finally got everything to work for you, it's a good job to have behind you.