I have an 85 Iroc that's all origional with 145,000 miles on it. Sunday morning it developed a knock in the engine on start up. I've checked all the rockers, etc and its not on the top end. Since I don't have a money tree growing in my back yard and its back to school time for my son, I'm going to have to fix it instead of replace it (origional 5.0 HO, 4 bbl, 5 speed). My question is if anyone out there has attempted to pull the pan with the engine still in. Its a REALLY tight fit in there and all suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

You'll never get anywhere with the engine still in the car man.

I'm not even sure you'd get all of the oil pan bolts off.

 

you would be better off running some 50w oil in there drive it easy and save for a replacement or rebuild.

 

it's not too hard to pull the pan off in the car, but you need to pull the Exhaust y-pipe off, though , if you don't have headers yet, this is a good excuse, you should pull the distrutor cap off and unbolt the engine mounts, be carfull on how high you lift the motor though, if you go too high, you may crack one of the A/C lines going into the condenser

if you are lucky and didn't spin a bearing, you can just put a crank kit (approx. $150-200) in it and be done...sounds like you did spin a bearing though, that would at least require the crank kit and pulling a head, pulling the rod out that had the bearing spin, and have the rod reconditioned, more work, but not much more money

 

It is perfectly possible to pull the pan with the engine in the car....I've changed a couple of oil pumps that way. You do have to unbolt the motor mounts and jack the engine up about 3-4" to do it though. Also it'll be no fun job laying there under the car trying to torque the main caps and rods.....

If it were me, I'd pull the motor. You can rent a cherry picker for a day once you have everything loose, and it's SO much easier to work on the bottom end when you actually have room to get to it. When you have the engine back together rent the cherry picker for another day to put it back in the car. Depending on rental costs, it may even be cheaper in the end to buy one and then resell it for a minor loss when you're done.