Miata Mailing List: May 1995, Message #133
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   From: Serikaku@aol.com
Subject: Oil pan replacement
   Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 02:50:12 -0400

Sorry to hear about your car Takahara.  Unfortuanetly, it's not easy to
replace the oil pan.  I've had mine off twice.  When I installed the BBR
turbo, I had to remove the oil pan to install the oil return line from the
turbo.  Since the engine was already out of the car, it seemed fairly easy.
 Mazda uses silicone sealer for the gasket material and there is a splash
shield sandwiched between the engine and the pan.  The pan has to be pried
off with a big screwdriver, and you  should use specially provided points to
pry on by the transmission, or you can damage the surface of the aluminum pan
(OK, maybe not since its trashed already ).  On my car, the splash shield
stuck to the pan.  The pan was loose all the way around, but would only drop
a half inch or so.  By the time I figured out that the oil pickup tube was
bolted to the shield and that I needed to seperate the shield from the pan, I
had broken the tube.  Be carefull putting the pan back on.  There are 2
rubber pieces that go over the ends of the crank that should be replaced.
 These pieces fit into groves on the engine.  These have to be held in place,
the shield put in place, the oil pickup tube bolted in and attatched to the
shield, and the pan lined up and put back on with the silicone sealer.  Not
easy to do when you are upside down and only have one pair of hands.  On my
car, the rubber piece came loose on the transmission end and didn't get
seated right, causing an oil leak through the clutch bell housing.  

I finally got tired of the leak and decided to fix it last month.  The shop
manual recommends 2 ways to remove and replace the pan.  One way is to pull
the engine and flip it upside down.  This makes lining up everything easier.
 The other way is to support the engine with a hoist and drop the bottom
suspension support member several inches.  This provides enough room to slide
the pan out.  Since the engine is still in place, there is very little room
around the engine to work, and since this orientation of the engine is how I
got in trouble in the first place, I decided to pull the engine out again.
 This time, I flipped the engine on a stand and reinstalled the pan.  It was
so easy to line everything up I could have kicked myself for not doing it
right the first time.  

A hint on getting the engine back in.  Remove or loosen the engine motor
mounts.  Its very hard to get the mount bolts to line up in the holes.  Or
use a long flat piece of metal to push the bolts into the holes, they can be
moved since they are attatched to a rubber block.  

Watch out for rocks in the road and big potholes.  The Miata only has 4
inches of ground clearance.  Most cars have 5 or 6 inches.  There is a speed
bump that covers a water drain pipe in my parking garage at work that I can
scrape if I don't crawl over it very slowly and angle the car.  But its worth
it when I go around corners  ;-)

Good luck on the oil pan.

Ron Serikaku, white 91A with BBR turbo

Anyway, good luck replacing your oil pan.