HotWheelsBurban
Gotta have 4 doors..... Rawhide, TOTY 2023!
Yep it's a pain to get out, glad I didn't have to remove it to do the starter! If you have the transmission out like OP has done, the pan probably will come out from the rear. When I had to do timing set and oil pan gaskets on the old 99(C1500 2wd 5.7 vortec suburban) the motor mount bolts needed to be pulled out and the engine jacked up about an inch, maybe 2" at the most. There's a windage tray on the main caps and another one in the pan, and they're very close to each other. They kept catching on each other as I was trying to get the pan off and out from under the truck. It was just on stands in the driveway; on a lift you might have better angles to get it out. Don't know if all vortec motors have this setup but it sure complicated matters then. Dad made a laminated wooden block with a half circle cutout to put under the crankshaft snout, worked great.Yes.
Haynes says remove the steel torque convertor cover (four bolts) but as that would have entailed disconnecting an exhaust downpipe I merely removed the bolts and moved the cover enough to access the oil pan bolts at the rear corners.
Removing it would have made the job easier - assuming the exhausts co-operated that is.
The whole job started with an oil change and replacing the belt tensioner. Saw the water pump was leaking, looked at the mileage, thought "how hard could the timing set take?"(had done on older 350s). Found out! Have to replace plastic timing cover, drop oil pan, jack engine up, put the truck back together, 1 day job turned into 3 weeks. Truck went another 5 years though, still ran great when it was wrecked. I ended up dropping the cooler lines and the mount that the filter is on, it was leaking from the o ring. I took my time and cleaned everything carefully, put it all back together with anti seize and torqued according to GM specs in the factory shop manuals. Whenever I have to do this job on my current truck, at least I have some ideas of what I'm getting into! Hope it isn't anytime soon though