How to remove oil pan???

[63LeSabre401]

How do I remove the oil pan from my 63 leSabre 401? The crossmember is in the way and it looks as if the center link needs to come out first!

Am I missing something???

[Smartin]

Drop the centerlink and remove the motor mount bolts. Jack the engine up a few inches to get the oil pan to clear the crank.

To drop the centerlink, you can either remove the pitman arm from the steering box, or unbolt the idler arm off the frame.

[66electrafied]

If you're just changing a leaky gasket, then try lifting the motor, and dropping the draglink. If you're going deeper, then you're probably better off to remove the whole engine. If you're going to be doing any kind of bottom end work like bearings it's just better to pull the motor. The oil pump is fairly accessible from underneath with the pan off. I've removed an oil pan off of a '60 Invicta from underneath and it wasn't pretty. Putting it back in and getting the gasket to seat properly is the fun part. Although it looks easy, unless you lift the motor up quite high you won't clear the baffles in the pan and possibly tear up the gasket. In order to lift the motor up high enough, you're pretty much going to have to disconnect it all from the car anyway.

[455-69riv]

hmm