Well you were probably expecting a thread like this from me. Basically, I'm an idiot. I followed the directions instead of common sense, and left the lifters in the block when taking the camshaft out. Plop, plop. Guess what there are 4 of in my oilpan? I'll give you a hint- they're not supposed to be there, and they've got a close relationship with pushrods. Yeah... So now I need to get them out, wherein lies the question: the obvious fix is to drop the crossmember and oilpan, but I would need a lot of time and some way to get the car onto a lift (not really possible). My hope is that there might be a way to unbolt the mounts and jack the engine up enough to get the pan off, or at least off enough to reach in with a magnet and pull the lifters out. Any thoughts? And also, can I lift the engine enough without unbolting the driveshaft?

 

yes, you can do that, that is exactly how im gonna replace my oil pan gasket in 2 weeks.

 

You have to unbolt either the trans cross member or the bellhousing bolts depending how high you are going to lift it up. That can be a major job there.

 

yea trans crossmember. however im pulling the trans too to replace it, so i dont have that prob. get a haynes maual, it says how to do it in there step by step

 

the thing is if you dont unbolt the bellhousing bolts, you cant get the motor up too high to work on it. Where are you planning on jacking the motor up from? *meaning where on the motor will the jack go? From what Ive seen the only place to jack the motor is the oil pan, so then you can't take it off.

 

no, ya jack from the oil pan, then put blocks in the motor mounts, set it down on the blocks, take off pan, do w.e. put pan back on, lift up, take out blocks, drop back down

 

Yeah... there's got to be some other way to get those lifters out of the pan.

 

damn i never thought of that... i was just gunna rent an engine hoist to do my oil pan

and if you have the head off you should be able to get them, after all they did have to fall down that way anyway so if would only make sence that you could pull them out the way they fell

 

I dont see that being possible with a magnet. even with the heads off, you only have the lifter holes to try to fish them out of.. aka IMPOSSIBLE. even with a good magnet you still have the lower rotating assembly in the way. I'd say your only choice is to take the pan off.

 

hey it was only a thought and i didn't think it all the way threw... i somehow forgot about the rotating ***. being in the way