350 chevy engine: do i need to drop the oil pan to change the timing cover?

The answer is both yes and no.





The oil pan and timing cover share the front seal.. The seal (rubber) fits into a groove in the bottom of timing cover, then the oil pan fits up against that.





The easy way to do it is remove the front 2 or 3 bolts per side on oil pan, and pry oil pan down a tad.. Remove timing cover.. Then on re install use RTV under the oil pan and timing cover..





Now it can be done w/o moving oil pan, but it is harder.. You can take timing cover off pretty easy, but to install it with pan still up, you will need to cut the corners off the timing cover where the seal fits, and also cut the corners off the seal.. Then use RTV to fill in those corners on reinstall.





I just did the above on a 1982 firebird with a 1968 327 in it. It has about 500 miles on it since the install and no leaks350 chevy engine: do i need to drop the oil pan to change the timing cover?
Like vettecam %26amp; chevyraceman said, you can do it without completely dropping the pan, but you do have to loosen the pan bolts and drop the front of the pan a few millimeters. Make sure you follow their advice about using RTV sealer or you won't keep oil in the thing.350 chevy engine: do i need to drop the oil pan to change the timing cover?
Don't listen to that guy.....350 chevy is and will always be a small block.





You will have to drop the pan to put a new gasket on the front of the pan and re-seal it....if the pan has a four peice pan gasket. And pray they didn;t use cork or your doing the pan gasket too.





IF your engine has the one peice reusable oil pan gasket installed already, you will not have to drop the pan but you will have to loosen the first three to four bolts on the front of the pan in order to pull the pan down far enough to get the grooves of the timing cover onto the lip of the pan.


Be sure to use silicone on the timing cover gasket or it will leak.
yes because everything is connected to the bottom sprocket.
what year and a small or big block 350? chances are the answer is yes, but you can just drop the front of the pan to remove, you dont have to take the pan the whole way off or pull the whole engine to get the pan off, if that's whar your trying to find out.