Well, that was probably overly ambitious for a weekend but it's all back together. The way the oil pan gasket goes on this thing is pretty idiotic. I mentioned earlier to a coworker that seems to be the way it is with this engine is they only had really good ideas or really stupid ideas with nothing in between. There is a filler panel that holds the front parts of the oil pan seal, but the sides of the oil pan gasket sit between this filler panel and the block. The engine mount carrier plate also bolts to this filler and is seals to it along with the block and head, but that carrier plate also curves back under the oil pan making it very difficult to get the pan in and out with the carrier plate in place.
So really you need to put the sides of the oil pan gasket on the block and put the filler piece in place. Then bolt the carrier plate into everything so the front of that filler plate lines right up with the front of the block and head otherwise that won't seal. At that point though you have to take the carrier plate back off so you can get the oil pan on and sealed up. Then you can put the carrier back on (which has two gaskets) at which you can put the timing chain assembly on and the timing cover.
The caveat to this is that I couldn't do this. Those things all seem like they'd be easy with the engine on a stand, which mine wasn't it was still bolted in the car....mostly. So the engine was still in the car bolted to the transmission which was bolted to the transmission mount which means taking the engine mount carrier plate unbolted meant holding the engine up with an engine hoist. The problem there being that with the engine hoist holding the engine up I didn't have room to get the oil pan up there. What I ended up doing was take the laughably small number of bolts that secure the carrier plate to the block (3) and add some surrogate bolts to increase that number using the holes that are also meant for the timing cover and letting the engine back on that so I could get the engine hoist out of the way to put the pan on. As mentioned above this is not ideal so I'm really just praying at this point the pan doesn't leak.....that means doing all this again. With the pan on I lifted the engine with the hoist again to take stress off the carrier and put the rest of the engine back together.
I did take the opportunity to move the timing a tooth so the guide can be bolted a bit more securely. Speaking of weirdly stupid decisions, that guide bolts to the carrier plate with through bolts so no real good way to keep that sealed up.
In the end, it's back together and the oil temperature sensor is in there. Reckon we'll find out in the next few days if it all worked.
So really you need to put the sides of the oil pan gasket on the block and put the filler piece in place. Then bolt the carrier plate into everything so the front of that filler plate lines right up with the front of the block and head otherwise that won't seal. At that point though you have to take the carrier plate back off so you can get the oil pan on and sealed up. Then you can put the carrier back on (which has two gaskets) at which you can put the timing chain assembly on and the timing cover.
The caveat to this is that I couldn't do this. Those things all seem like they'd be easy with the engine on a stand, which mine wasn't it was still bolted in the car....mostly. So the engine was still in the car bolted to the transmission which was bolted to the transmission mount which means taking the engine mount carrier plate unbolted meant holding the engine up with an engine hoist. The problem there being that with the engine hoist holding the engine up I didn't have room to get the oil pan up there. What I ended up doing was take the laughably small number of bolts that secure the carrier plate to the block (3) and add some surrogate bolts to increase that number using the holes that are also meant for the timing cover and letting the engine back on that so I could get the engine hoist out of the way to put the pan on. As mentioned above this is not ideal so I'm really just praying at this point the pan doesn't leak.....that means doing all this again. With the pan on I lifted the engine with the hoist again to take stress off the carrier and put the rest of the engine back together.
I did take the opportunity to move the timing a tooth so the guide can be bolted a bit more securely. Speaking of weirdly stupid decisions, that guide bolts to the carrier plate with through bolts so no real good way to keep that sealed up.
In the end, it's back together and the oil temperature sensor is in there. Reckon we'll find out in the next few days if it all worked.