rear main seal

[whiteandbronze4]

I've let my rear main seal leak for too long and now I've finally got time to fix it. does anyone have any tips or tricks to changing it? The Chiltons manule says i only have to pick up the engine and remove the oil pan to get to it. is this true? should i drop the trans as well? or leave the oil pan and just drop the trans? Maybe leave the trans and yank the whole engine? 
anyone have any pictures of when they did this to share?

Thank you

[thereverendbill]

the best plain of action I'd say is to drop the trans to get to it or pull the motor.  Some say that you can take take the oilpan off without pulling the engine but when I tried i ended up having to pull the engine after we forced the old oil pan off

[milliard431]

I could swear there is an article on how to replace by just dropping the oil pan but just give this post a couple days and one or more members will let you know.

[carnuck]

It depends on whether you have the 4 cyl or 6 cyl.

[whiteandbronze4]

it's a 6

[carnuck]

Then drop the oil pan and rear main cap. The lower half is easy. The upper half is tougher. When I did mine, I thought it was still leaking, but it turned out it was the valve cover all along and then the oil pressure sender blew off on the freeway!

[whiteandbronze4]

I had just the opposite problem. I changed the Valve cover but it was the rear Main. I don't need to do anything fancy to the engine like pick it up a bit to get the pan off?

[Eagleearl]

I've never done it but the engine would need to be raised quite a bit to get the oil pan to slide below the front of the transmissionand below the crankshaft in the front.

[vangremlin]

You can go one of two ways - raise the engine, or drop the front drivetrain.  Either way you have to gain enough clearance to remove the oil pan, like Eagleearl said.

[milliard431]

And replace the appropriate mounts while you are at it!