Changed oil pan gasket.... WHAT A PAIN!!!!

[Huffa]

This is on 91 Accord SE.

1st off, I had to heat the 3 nuts CHERRY RED where flex pipe meets converter. They would not budge till I did this. Upper ones at front of pipe surprisingly came off with a good toug and were in good shape. You must take flex pipe off for pan to drop... (in case you are wondering)

Now for THE PAIN : Once you remove all the bolts and nuts from pan just try and remove it on the R side where it butts up to tranny. Every where else is fine but at tranny there is a black tin plate cover that keeps the pan from dropping down! If your impatient I could see how you could warp the pan gasket surface from tugging and pulling and tweaking it to get it removed.

Same goes for installing...you must give a quick sturdy BOP with your hand to get it past that tight area. NOT GOOD as it then pushes the gasket out of place.

THE FIX (worked for me anyway) : Before installing pan take that dumb plate off and grind the 2 tabs away that tuck into tranny, next grind some from where top R bolt is.

NOW you can install the tranny plate AFTER the pan. Makes the whole job much, MUCH easier!!! I grinded just enough away at top R bolt so it would slide in with pressure from a screw driver.

[sickhonda]

I don't see why you need to remove the A-pipe from the cat connection on the rear. You just need to remove the front ones (three bolts) holding the A-pipe to the exhaust manifold then unhook the rubber hanger near the flex pipe off the center beam, pull it down afterwards. This should give you sufficient amount of clearance to take the oil pan out. What you didn't do to make things easy for you is to remove the torque converter cover and the control cable holder cover off the tranny. No harm removing them and without these the pan should come off and go in smooth and easy. Put the covers back on when the pan is already in place. Done it many times, once to my car and several times on friends cars. The whole job takes less than 20 minutes.

[Huffa]

I wanted the A-pipe out of my way when working underneath the car and besides that, the nuts were so rusted and hard to get off it will be much easier if I have to replace the cat sometime in the future.

The tin plate I referred to IS what you call the torque converter plate (now I know, thanks!!) and I did take it off. On mine you had to put it back on 1st before pan (the way it was designed) until I just slightly modified it.

Maybe the SE has a somewhat different plate??

Not really sure why there would be a difference though??

On the front of A pipe...you said 3 bolts; mine are threaded studs with NUTS that you take off. Maybe thats what you meant though?

HMMMM The control cable holder cover I DID not take off and won't know exactly what you mean till tomorrow. Thats probably the mistake I made....Let you know & THANKS!!!!

[Huffa]

Now I see!!! Didn't look close enough and did not realize control cable holder came off.

Thanks so much!!