Is there any possible way to do this without a lift and without pulling balljoints to get at the CVs? Or is there a better way of pulling the CVs without pulling the joints.

 

I'm confused a little. Are you wondering about pulling the cv axles or the oil pan?

for the cv axles, I've tried loosening the ball joints with0ut removing to angle the knuckle to get the cv out, but was in able to without atleast removing the lower ball joint.

oil pan I'm unsure of...

 

The CVs are splined on both ends to the Differential and the hubs, keeping the differential in place directly under the oilpan. i would like to completely remove the oilpan as i need to replace the timing cover and im sure that if i only slightly drop it the pan will begin leaking from its gasket anyways, so i want to throw a new oilpan gasket at it in the process.

 

Ah now I get the oil pan in the title. Sorry but cant really help. Haven't had to do anything on the lower half of the engine yet.

 

There just isn't enough clearance between the bottom of the motor and the front transaxle to get the pan out as is. You ineverably end up hitting one of the crank mount brackets inside. Short of either loostening the transaxle on one side or loosening the engine mounts and giving it a lift. I tried to do it a few years back by loostening 1 mount. ALLLLLLMOST got it. But ended up doing what I needed with the pan lowered but not out.

 

What would be what you needed? in my case i want to replace the oil pan gasket while im in there and ideally feel around the bottom of the pan for plastic bits from the old timing cover.

 

Did you get it done? I just did my timing set and only loosened the front oil pans bolts. It is all silicone gasket so pretty forgiving. But I do have a tip I’d you haven’t done it yet. Pull the gasket back which is in between the timing cover and the pan, clean very well and use silicone before reinstalling into the pan groove. If you don’t do this you may get a major leak.

 

Leaks been fixed for a good little while now, solving an in-plenum fuel leak now.