I have an 05 silvey 4X4 5.3 L. The shifting cable bracket is in the way when I try to drop the pan to change the filter. So is the front drive shaft and exhaust. How does one go about removing the obstacles to dropping the tranny pan? I got it mostly off and had to reinstall without finishing the job.

All help is appreciated.

Thanks

Jim

 

The shifting cable bracket(one of those things GM designers should burn in hell for) is held on by two T20 or T25 torx bolts. You need to carefully clean the inside of the torx bolts heads. Otherwise the torx driver won't go all the way into the bolt head and will STRIP the torx bolts. Q-tips and vaseline will help remove the accumulated dirt. You only need to loosen the bolts about three full turns, so you can push the cable out of the way to lower the pan.

You should be able to work the pan past the exhaust if you drop the front drive shaft. You will probably need wrenches and sockets to access all the pan bolts.(10 MM if memory serves)

 

I found this out the hard way too. I also removed the catalytic converter heat shield on the passanger side. I stripped the head of the xmsn drain pan and made a pretty good mess on my "ghetto creeper" (a large flattend cardboard box), when i eventually dropped the pan.

 

bend that motha sucka out of the way, i thought ford was the only one's who put everything in the way of everything else, guess i was wrong

 

I bent mine outta the way with some vise grips. Then for the muffler, I found a wedge shaped block of wood put it between the muff and cab and hammered it in to move the muffler about an inch lower to give the required clearance.

 

Word to the wise here:

Install a drain pan bolt when you do the job next time, they're only 10$ at most parts stores. Then you won't be schlopping xmission fluid all over yerself any more.

I personally replaced those drek TORX bolts with (metric, surprise!)six-point bolts from the hardware store.