Remove Oil Pan 2000 XJ

I'm in the process of dropping the oil pan to replace the pan gasket and rear main seal.

It seems like I am going to have to remove the pre-cats and exhaust crossover in order to get to the left rear pan bolts.

Are there any tricks? Is it possible to do without removing the pre-cats?

I have removed the oil pan on older Cherokees - I know it's not a problem. Being a 2000 the exhaust is different.

I have read that it is possible without removing the pre-cats. However, I believe this depends if your pre-cats have shifted over time. Some years back I ended up driving completely over a mobile home trailer tire that was rolling down to road towards me. This bent my tie rod into a S shape and dented my gas tank skid plate. It also appears to have pushed my mini cats against the oil pan making it impossible to reach the oil pan bolts. When they are correctly hung, there should be 1/4" maybe more between the oil pan and the mini cats making the oil pan bolts accessible. If you need to touch the mini-cats, I would get a 15mm universal/swivel socket. For this application a universal and normal shallow socket is too tall. I also found it easier to take the exhaust loose at the muffler rather than the cat. There is more room for the impact wrench. At first I tried the studs at the cat, but could not easily get an impact on the nuts and ended up braking two of the studs in the cat and had to drive them out and replace them.

Mine is definitely touching the oil pan. That's the reason I'm doing this entire project haha. I don't mind the oil leak but the oil leak constantly smoldering because there is oil touching two catalysts worries me a lot. Had the Jeep on a motocross and rally cross track a few weeks ago. After probably 10 minutes at 4000+ RPM it was billowing smoke from the pan gasket leaking.

So, what you are saying is - I can remove the exhaust after the two cats (i guess that would be the crossover) and then move the cats over? I realllllly don't want to play around with disconnecting them from the manifolds.

Have you looked at your cat to crossover nuts? Mine didn't look much like nuts anymore. I would try a nut splitter to salvage the studs. They are splined bolts that press in from the crossover pipe side.

While you may be able to separate the crossover pipe from the minicats and swing the minicats out to get at the oil pan bolts, to get the cats away from the oil pan permanently I don't see how you can do that without loosening the 4 bolts that hold the minicat flanges to the exhaust manifolds. It really isn't that bad. Go at it from the bottom with a long extension. I use a 18" or 24". The bolts can loosen up over time which is part of the problem. The exhaust bolts close to the engine get hot enough they usually come loose for me. As you get farther down towards the muffler they're more likely to break.

This is all pretty fresh in my mind because I just did the RMS, oil pan gasket, and mini-cats last month. It's nice not having leaks! No smell, no puddles on the garage floor.

Took a little bit of wiggling and enough extensions to change a crankshaft sensor but it came off without having to take the e,hast out.

I discovered that I have a cracked flex plate. Also the pan gasket bolts were real lose on the drivers side rear; I took three out without a ratchet just using my hands and extension. Someone had the oil pan off before, though.

Oh and one of the oil pump bolts was sitting in the pan haha. Oil pump drive looks good though.

So how did you get it off?

When I dropped the pan on my 97 XJ one of the oil pump bolts was in the pan too.

I'd put Vibra-tite, weatherstripping adhesives, or some kind of RTV back on the bolts when you put it all back together. The only leak I had on my 97 XJ after doing the pan & RMS was from the front cover and it was because the bolts kept backing off. The Vibra-tite is something that came in one of the JKS aftermarket parts I bought so I just used that.

I took off the starter (all 3 bolts on that were finger tight too for some reason) and just tied the transmissions lines off to the right. Then jacked the frame up a bit. It was actually easier taking off the starter than when I did it before on another XJ.

Surprised that my RMS was actually leaking - I thought it was all the oil pan gasket. Little bit of a valve cover gasket, too. But that should be easy.

Looks like you got your pan issue taken care of. I have a question because I have a very similar problem. I noticed in places where I had to downshift and keep the RPM's at 3000+ for extended periods of time that I would overheat and I thought boil over the overflow tank causing me to see steam billowing out behind me and I'd see evidence under the Jeep when I stopped. Replaced the entire cooling system and the overheating is gone but I had the same billowing white stuff in the same scenario but my temp only came up to 215 or so, no boiling coolant but lots of very thin oil under the entire jeep. I know the rear main is gone and suspect the valve cover and oil pan gaskets as well.
My big question is 'Did you only see our issue after running high RPM?'

Miller88 said:

I took off the starter (all 3 bolts on that were finger tight too for some reason) and just tied the transmissions lines off to the right. Then jacked the frame up a bit. It was actually easier taking off the starter than when I did it before on another XJ.

Surprised that my RMS was actually leaking - I thought it was all the oil pan gasket. Little bit of a valve cover gasket, too. But that should be easy.

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How did you deal with the oil pan bolts that were hidden by the cats?

md21722 said:

How did you deal with the oil pan bolts that were hidden by the cats?

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Turns out you can get at them if you put the socket in from the bottom. But the extension is small enough to fit between the exhaust and the pan, or between the front and rear bank pipes. I slid the extension and socket along the bottom of the pan (Horizontal), then wiggled it around so it was vertical and it came out pretty easy!

Kind of hard to explain haha.

Oh, OK.

I took my pan to the machine shop and they "washed it". It was a lot easier than doing it by hand in the garage or kitchen sink.