Oil Pan

This oil pan has kicked my butt! Only to find out, I should be kicking my butt! I did not measure twice and cut (hammer) once! Read on...

Well, after reading up on my good buddy pulxar's build, I found out that the VG33 oil pan will not work for this swap, it hits the front differential, so you will have to reuse the VG30 oil pan...and the VG30 oil pan has to be modified, because the VG33's oil pickup tube (which is routed on the passenger's side of the block) doesn't play nicely with the VG30's oil pan (the VG30's has the oil pickup starts on the drivers's side of the block, but crosses over to the passenger's side of the block, so you will have to create a relief on the passenger's side of the VG30 oil pan).

• 1. First, off with the VG30 oil pan, drain the oil, remove the bolts following the removal sequence in the manual, and carefully separate the pan from the block (I used a think putty knife and slid it along the mating surface).

• 1. Clean and paint the pain, of course...used SEVERAL methods to get all the old sealer off (scraper, wire brushes, etc)

• 1. No finished pic of the pan, you say? No, 'cause I THOUGHT I had finished it, but I had bad technique of which sides to paint first, other mishaps, it was taking WAY too long...more on that later...

  2. Let's remove the VG33 pan so we can put the VG30 pan on...this slinger (NISSAN FACTORY PART!!!!) that i waited WEEKS to order did NOT work...these chains did...removal is the same, take note of the location of the 3 metal brackets that attach to the pan, i'm assuming these are for wiring harnesses and looms

• 1. This doesn't look good...hopefully this means the strainer did it's job!

• 1. Clean the mating surface(s) real good

• 1. I test fit the pan, it didn't...(wasn't mating up on the passenger side by about 1/2"...so using pulxar's suggestion, I put some vaseline (then Fast Orange) along the pickup tube, then put the pan on and tried to mark where i THOUGHT it was hitting...

• 1. Yeah, it IS "impossible" to get something down in there...messed up the pan trying to do just that (you can see that on the lip), and you can see where i was able to hammer the baffle down some...took it to Wilson Welding to see if they could fabricate a bar to loop over the pan and give me better striking access, they rigged up something to put a large tube in the pan, and hammer around it from the outside to raise the lip....

• 1. I put the pan on, it still didn't work, was off exactly the same as before...then i got the bright idea that since it's not mating up on the right and front, maybe it's hitting at the FRONT of the oil pickup? Put more Fast Orange on the tube, put the pan on, sure enough, there was now Fast Orange on the front of the pan (maybe I missed it before, or, correctly, only put it on the back where i THOUGHT it was hitting)...hammered the pan out in these new areas (basically, matching the left side of the pan) and she fit like a glove...a SNUG glove, i got a feelin the pickup is gonna be touching the bottom of the pan, but oh well!

  2. So we need to JB-Weld that damaged lip, and REPAINT...(and you can maybe see where I dented the bottom of the right side of the pan)

• 1. "Finished"

• 1. Attachment...this did NOT go smoothly...they recommend you install the pan within 5 minutes of applying the RTV Silicone...silicone application went ok, but the seals at the end didn't stay in place, I had to use this "holding fixture" to help keep the pan in place, and one bolt wouldn't thread properly...it was daylight when I took that pic w/the block, nighttime when I finished...but some sealant oozed out, so maybe it'll be aight...and I need to get a torque wrench! (Notice I kept (ordered new ones) the "RUBBER-ENGINE REAR PLATE" blocks from the VG30 that weren't on the VG33. And I'll touchup the oil pan paint before I set the engine in!

• 1. It bothered me all week that the install didn't go well...i wondered if that front seal shifted on me (since i didn't hold it in place)...sure enough...with the pan slightly lowered you can see that it wasn't in the recess on the driver's side, and with the seal removed you can see how it got sideways!

• 1. So cleaned everything back up, bought a new gasket/seal set (er, look at this pic, the top one is the old gasket, middle is the new gasket, bottom is the APPARENTLY WRONG gasket!)...oh, and good thing i still had some unused sealant from last time, one of the tubes in the NEW gasket was dried up!!! Expect anything!!!

• 1. And, voila! This time, I put the seals in their recesses on the block (hadta use sealer to hold the front one in place, the rear one stayed on its own)...I put sealer on the ends of the seals first, then the pan, then installed the pan...I had it roughly mounted within the recommended five minutes, but it still took me about 15-20 minutes total to get the bolts tightened and TORQUED DOWN PROPERLY (calls for 62-70 in. lbs., i went with 66 at first, then 70 to be sure!)

• 1. This are got treated badly somewhere in my frustration of figuring out where/how to modify the pan, finally got around to cleaning it up!