Has anyone ever replaced the oil pan gasket on the first gen truck? I was reading the service manual and it appears you need to drop the front suspension member. It seems hard and time consuming. Has anyone done this before? If so please let me know and let me know if you want to help to.

as always thanks for the info

Yes...and it's a PITA. Many trucks are this way these days. Why do I know? With all the salt around here oil pans often rust out, I actually try to keep a coat of oil on it every time I change the oil, but with skid plates, that's impossible to do...but I digress.

I can't remember the steps, but I basically followed the steps in the ESM.

Yeah i saw drips starting below my skid plate so i took it off and noticed that it is defiantly been dripping for a while. I so i think it is time to do it, but just dont want to. Ill get a couple quotes but my first quote from nissan was $350 which ill just do it myself for that price...

It's not hard, just a pain...plan on the better part of a day to do it.

Scott, did what did you use to break the seal of the gasket? I when i was looking up the part number (kv10111100, J-37228) it came up with this which is ridiculously expensive http://www.handsontools.com/Kent-Moore-J-37228-Cutter-Pan-Seal-_p_13140.html

I also found on another forum someone mentioning a 4 in 1 putty knife (which i have already) for the price Im thinking about trying the below which sounds like it would work, what do you think or how did you do it?
Thanks



And finally, did you have to actually do all this? i don't know if i really want to disconnect and lift everything up myself, At that point it might be worth me paying to have it done if i look again and don't feel comfortable.

I just used a putty knife, similar to the one you mentioned...I also used two, one regular putty knife. You have to be carful because the oil pan is just thin, sheet metal and you don't want to distort it. Take your time and it will come off slowly after breaking the seal.

I know I did not remove the starter. I did remove the front diff and the crossmember. I did not remove the transmission, but may have loosened it and jacked it out of the way. I also don't remember touching the steering box...I don't believe I have ever touched that.

I believe I just removed engine mounting brackets and jacked the whole thing up a few inches to gain enough clearance.

Romeo,
If you want help getting it done, let me know.

Thanks for the offer! Well it was pissing out oil all of a sudden so i had to get it done and since it was raining i ended up taking it into a the local Middletown Nissan dealer. Good thing i did since it took them a day and a half! I dont know why because i thought since it was Nissan they knew what they were doing and would knock it out in the estimated shop time of 4 hours. Make a long story short they only charged me the quoted amount so i was happy but unhappy how long i was stuck without a car.

In the end it all worked out. But now my next item i need to take care of is my valve cover gaskets, the one on the passenger side is leaking and dripping on the exhaust manifold which makes it smell like burning oil... So that is my next to do list.

So the only thing i can figure out is that this all started happening when i switched from conventional oil to "high Mileage" oil... Do you think this is because it might have some additive that breaks down deposits that were clogging the leaks? Let me know what you think. I might switch back to conventional oil. Would this be possible or just a coincidence?