Removing oil pan with g260 and 24v swap

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I've never seen this mentioned before, so I snapped some pictures. I needed to replace an oil pump, so I needed to remove the oil pan. I have an s52 with the e34 oil pan and g260 trans; pretty standard. Went to remove the oil pan: dropped subframe, removed all the little bolts and tried to pull it out. Broke the seal on the gasket and it seemed to be stuck at the rear. Pried on it, looked at it, scratched my head, and then I realized. There are 2 more bolts at the rear of the pan which are covered by the g260 bellhousing. With the ZF trans, it's not a problem because there are reliefs which give access to those bolts.

At first I was very annoyed. I don't want to pull the trans. Then I remembered I had an e36 pan kicking around, and the bellhousing is aluminum, easy to drill. And I had a drill bit big enough to allow a 10mm socket to fit.....

So I measured on the e36 pan where the bolts should be with relation to the 2 other rear bolts (since I can't see them). I drilled pilot holes so I could gauge my accuracy (I was accurate) then drilled the holes to allow access to the bolts with the 10mm socket.



Here you can see the rear most bolts are not evenly spaced from the other 2 rear bolts. I measured 53mm spacing on the passenger side, and 45mm on the driver side with ~10mm spacing from the trans to pan joint.

Now I let the pictures do the talking.

Here is the e36 pan, notice the bolt spacing.





Here is the e30 pan (after I removed it) showing the hidden bolt placement.





Holes drilled in the g260





My pro notes.




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[M3PO]

The hole at the top of the pic looks to have removed quite a bit of strength from the bell housing.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

The hole at the top of the pic looks to have removed quite a bit of strength from the bell housing.

The bell housing doesn't really take much force there. And it only bolts to the block in like 4 places actually. None of the holes on the oil pan line up to the bell housing.



Am I really the only one who has noticed the pan can't be unbolted with g260?

[AndrewBird]

This has been talked about before and you aren't the first to drill holes in the bell housing.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

This has been talked about before and you aren't the first to drill holes in the bell housing.

Really? Dammit. I thought I did a thorough search. Oh well. I figured someone HAD to have noticed this before now.

Links? I'm curious.

[Mwishlist]

Just out of curiosity, your sig says fully rebuilt s52; what happened to the oil pump?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Just out of curiosity, your sig says fully rebuilt s52; what happened to the oil pump?

Not related. I pieced together an s52 by sourcing all the parts, some I had, some I bought. I reused the oil pump from an old m52 I had which was a little scored in the housing. I never had 18psi oil pressure at idle which is iirc the TIS specified pressure at idle for a new motor. So I decided to get a low mileage pump and replace all the internal components and see if that changes anything. If not, I figure out the next step. I decided to replace it before I did anything else because I knew it was a little worn out from the beginning.

[Mwishlist]

Thanks. I'm looking at a possible rebuild before a swap so I was just curious.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

If the motor is in good shape, you probably don't need to. I'd suggest at least tearing it down to the short block and replace all gaskets, seals, anything that has potential to leak. It's very easy to do it with the motor on a stand and its relatively inexpensive. You'll thank yourself later when you don't have to deal with anything leaking.


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[Mwishlist]

Thanks again! That's what I keep reading / hearing and I am seriously considering just going that route.

[emmanuel.dlc]

did it a while back:

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Yep. I finally found your pictures after I posted mine. Oh well. Here's another thread for someone to stumble upon if they face the same issue.


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