440 Oil Pan Gasket (Ford F100)

[dvw]

I'm with thw clean it seal it crowd. The Yamahe genrrator in my trailer leaked between th ecase halves. Took all the bolts out and pryed the case halves apart about 1/8". Cleaned the gasket out with an exacto blade. brkleen it a few time to make sue all the oil drained. Filled the gap with sealer and bolted it together. That was 5-6 years ago. Hasn't leaked a drop. I've sealed 440 pans with Ultra Grey rtv. no leaks.
Doug

 

[matnetik]

Remove the two 7/16-14 bolts that go through the ears of the engine and into the transmission.. Replace them with longer bolts.... mark the convertor/flexplate then remove the four bolts that attach the convertor to the flexplate....Unbolt the starter, Is there a transmission crossmember and mount? If so it'll need to come out... Driveshaft/linkages/cooler lines all may need to be disconnected but you might get the room you need without doing so...

Get a jack under the trans & remove the bolts attaching the transmission to the engine.... Just be careful, things need to be secured so you don't wind up with an engine/transmission sitting on some random body part... A crushed hand/arm would suck... A crushed head would suck a lot more...

BTW I saw an engine fall out of a truck ripping all the hoses & wires that had been attached to it when the "technician" in the stall next to mine failed to pay attention... Luckily the vehicle was the only thing that suffered..

This is the way - I want to do this the right way mainly because I have no idea whats in the bottom of that pan, when I got it popped off a ton of old gasket fell in the pan and I am sure it’s a mess in there. I think I can separate the transmission just enough to drop the pan, probably without even unbolting the converter or plate to be honest. Going to go at it this weekend and we will see.

The backup plan is to scrape it, put tons of shop rags in the pan and scoop out everything I can, then seal and bolt back up haha. I think part of me just wants to dig into this engine a little deeper since I’ve never explored a 440, my little 302 in the Mustang is a piece of cake compared to this thing!

Will report back, big time appreciate everyone’s input and all the ideas on this one. I know it’s a swap and out of the ordinary.

 

[matnetik]

For anyone interested - after much debate I finally tackled it today.

Ended up jacking the engine up as high as I could from under the balancer and scraping the old gasket off with a razor blade. Had about 4-6” of clearance to get in the pan, cleaned it out with shop rags and towels until it was spotless on both the pan side, engine side and inside the pan.

I was able to navigate the new gasket under the oil collector so I didn’t have to cut it, added some RTV to the pan side on all the corners and bolted it all back together. So far so good! Thanks for all the input and advice, I almost separated the transmission but decided not to do that much work for a gasket, plus I needed to move the truck sooner than later and now it’s operational again!