That's right...Nothing! No oil drips after being under the van overnight. After putting off changing that E4WD oil pan gasket for so long, I'm elated at the results. No more being a social outcast for leaving oil drips on my friends driveways and no more parking on cardboard in my own garage.
I hope that's not one of those "old folk's diapers" that you sacrificed
It sure looks like one!!!!
Congratulations on the success. Just out of curiosity, what year is the van and what does the gasket look like? Is it one of those one-piece rubber with steel backing?
I hope that's not one of those "old folk's diapers" that you sacrificed
It sure looks like one!!!!
Congratulations on the success. Just out of curiosity, what year is the van and what does the gasket look like? Is it one of those one-piece rubber with steel backing?
Careful now Tung, you might be giving away your age if you recognized that. Its an underpad..... not a diaper. And no, its not mine.
The van is the same old '91 I've owned forever it seems. The gasket is a molded, neoprene, squiggly looking affair - both old and new. It is a Fel Pro gasket but no metal backing. The old one was brittle from age and heat exposure and literally broke apart in several pieces when removing it. That wedge seal was just as you described in an earlier post - a bear to get out. I too, had to remove the bearing cap to get the old one out and new one installed properly. It took an entire day to replace. One third of the time was spent dismantling the front suspension, axle and cross member, while another third was spent cleaning up parts. (I hate putting grimy parts back on.)
Last edited by aerocolorado : 03-01-2007 at 02:12 PM.
It seems Ford has changed the design a little bit since my '95 4.0L has a rubber gasket with steel backing to keep it from shifting around when you tighten the oil pan bolts.
Doing it all in one day is very very very fast, Dave. But then, you probably don't go for coffee breaks as much as I do. And that old age thing you are talking about didn't help either. Too frequent bathroom breaks.
Some day when I'm coming up that way, I'm going to drive to Fort Collins just to see that van of yours
As for parts cleaning, if you have an old dishwasher and some room in the garage, that dishwasher will really clean the parts. I remember when we were fixing up my brother's Explorer, he was about to install a new diswasher, so we used the old one for that purpose before we threw it away. It really worked, especially with hot water
Tung,
The welcome mat is always out for you or any other FTE member that wanders this way. Would love to meet some of you. By one day, I mean 12 solid hours of work with no breaks, except for a few of those 'walk-away' times when things don't seem to be working. I was bone tired at the end.
96_4wdr,
You know the saying about teaching old dogs new tricks. If they don't learn early on, they likely never will. We have some cats doing essentially the same thing. Got some of those "Scat-Mats" - battery powered shock mats. That did the trick.
As to the sealer. I only used it on the wedge seals and at the four, small areas recommended in the Ford manual. Otherwise, it went on dry. Its a really odd arrangement and rather expensive I would imagine, to machine the pan lip to accept such a convoluted gasket. It's unlike any gasket I've ever encountered.
Last edited by aerocolorado : 03-01-2007 at 11:46 PM.
Congratulations AeroC. It's a very satisfying feeling to know that you fixed up one of the major leaks of these engines. Of course, that is just one of many places that the engine is known to leak from.
How far did you have to take apart the front suspension? I just dropped the front axle, but I loosened the engine mounts so I could jock it around to get at all the oil pan bolts.
Was it you who found one of the brackets holding the front axle to the frame isolators cracked?
Since I welded up my bracket, it's held up so far. But I've also been driving around without the e4wd control module, so I haven't been experiencing any of that binding as I did before. So it's my theory that the 4wd binding is what cracks those brackets.
I think you are right. The E-4WD is not meant to be driven on surfaces with lots of friction. On snow, dirt or gravel, the twist on the front differential is probably not terribly excessive. However, if the speed sensors malfunction and you lock up the Transfer Case on asphalt, that could put a lot of stress on the bracket.
As it is now, I keep the control module unplugged and only plug it in before I enter snow or muddy roads.
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