I have been in the process of doing a v8 swap into my 95 4wd. I was all ready to start my motor up and crawled underneath it just to double check everything, and noticed that the oil pan was sitting on the front differential. I called the company that I got it from, Kevko Racing. They said to mark it where it hits and sent it back to them and they will cut that section out and reweld it. I was a little scared to do this since the rest of the welds on the pan don't look the best.
Well, to make a long story short, I got the pan back today and went to put it on the motor. It took me about a half an hour to put the pan on. They warped the pan when they welded that section in. When I got it on, I put the engine back in and checked the clearances again and there is about a 1/4-1/2 inch inbetween the pan and the front differential.
Is there anybody else that has had this problem? If so, how did you fix it? I really don't want to send the pan back to them, nor do I want to pay a local shop to reweld it.
I might be able to make a shim plate to put between the frame and the motor mount. The only thing about that is that I might run into interference with the distributor and the heater core outlets.
If anybody has any ideas, please let me know.
Thanks[/align]

 

As long as you have clearance you should be fine. If the welds don't leak then they're ok too. If you have concerns about the welds, you could always coat them with JB Weld.
You have already installed the pan so you could just put oil in the engine and check for leaks.

Just my opinion.

 

Maybe your motor mount adapters have the engine set lower than others. What about sending it back for a refund, and buying one that others might have used that is known to work.

 

I would agree with Chevylover, you shouldn't need much clearance. i would put some oil in and see what happens, welds may look like hell, but hopefully they look like hell because they make sure there is a good strong bead goin'. and kudos for doin the swap, more people should...

 

I was able to shim the passenger side axle where it mounts to the frame support about 1/4 inch. That gave me a little more clearance. I know the pan doesn't leak. I filled it with water and it sat on my counter for a while and didn't leak a drop. I guess I will just go with it and see what happens.
If all goes well, I will have it and my suspension liftdone by the end of this week.[sm=wootwoot.gif]

 

if you are putting a suspension lift on, why are you worried about haveing enough room? shouldnt your lift give you more room between your pan and diff. or am i wrong here? let us know how well it runs after your swap. i have been wanting to do this to mine for a while now, but with gas prices going up i got scared away from it.

 

now the lift will not change the clearance issue, it just lowers the tires.

 

for some reason i thought it would. i know it will on a solid axle, but wasnt sure if it will on newer blazers.

 

Yeah with my blazer, front and rear straight axle, i have TONS of clearance

 

I only an doing a 2-3" lift. Anything more than that would require brackets to drop the differential down. If I was going that way, I wouldn't have any problems at all. But I still think that I should be OK with the clearance that I have.
Oh, by the way, I lifted my truck about 6 inches from where it sat before. It was lowered by taking the torsion key bolts out. Now that I haev put in the new keys, it sits perfect. Now all I have to do is get rid of the blocks in the back and make a 3-4" shackle to lift the back.

All I have left to do is drop the motor back in (the 8th time), do a little bit of wiring and plumbing, and it should start (fingers crossed).