I know the front diff can be lowered on an 89 4 runner 22re truck to get to the oil pan, is it possible to jack up the engine from the trany housing though and get the same effect? Anyone done it have any pointers?

 

Do you have a body lift?

 

I've done it before. Unbolted the motor from the motor mounts. Lifted the front of the engine a bit then took two wooden wedges and stuck them between the motor mounts( where they seperate). Kept lifting the engine and pushing in the wedges as I go.

Make sure wires and other lines are not being bent or have stress on them.

Unbolted the pan then unbolted the pickup tube while pan is still in there. Then slid everything out. I believe I had to turn the crank a bit for it to clear.

 

Nope no lift, heard it's supposed to me easy with it though 4 in lift is needed right.

 

Bingo, this works perfectly. Done it a few times. You'll need a tube of FPIG for the pan, and a new gasket for the oil pickup.

 

Up that works. I also unhooked the centerlink at the pitman arm and idler arm. Gave more room to work.

 

I did it but I have a 3" body lift on my truck and it needed every inch of it to clear...

With no body lift on my truck it would not have been possible...

 

Thankyou all for your help with getting my oil pan off. As a note to anyone in the future who may attempt this, I found a really easy way to disconnect the idler side of the steering. Instead of trying to use a pickling fork and risking shmuking up that bushing, I just removed the three big bolts that attached the idler arm to the frame. Worked like a champ. In the end I found that this rig had seriously digested some timing chain rails. Underneith the pickup screen there was about a cup and a half of chewed up plastic pieces. My suspission is that these were taking up allot of surface area on the pickup screen, causing low oil pressure, causing my oil pressure reliant chain tensor not to tense the chain. Also note for anyone who is looking to do this in the future, make sure you have tons of permatex, not because you need a ton of it on the pan, but it's pretty easy to have it go everywhere, I ended up using my last tube up half way through the second appliction of the gasket. I put the permatex on the pan before trying to install the pickup tube, and after getting my arms completly goobered in permatex trying to get the tube aligned correctly, I ended up pulling the pan out again,cleaning all the permatex, then getting it situated with the pick up tube connected, and then putting the permatex on it once it was under the engine. I might suggest this as a real pain in the but way to do it, but helps keep everything cleaner. Anyways hope this helps some people. Thanks again for all the help.