Has anyone ever tired to remove and replace the oil pan on an 03 Accent? I have. Yesterday. I eyeballed the clearance between bottom of pan and the exhaust pipe that runs directly across and under the pan, equidistant from either end. I got the crazy idea that I could, after freeing the pan, just tip it past the exhaust pipe and cart it to the dumpster.

It took like what seemed several hours to get the bolts that hold the pan out--but probably this long-seeming was due to the tight working space which rendered three of the pan bolts almost impossible to turn. With the bolts gone I thought the pan would just fall into my hands; that is what happened with the transmission oil pan when I removed it to change the trans filter last month. But it seems that Hyundai uses a rubber gasket on the trans oil pan and some kind of RTV silicone application on the oil pan. In short, the pan was glued on. I fought and fought, finally chisled it off, damaging, in the process, an edge of the pan--but, what the heck, it was going to tossed anyway so what did I care?

By now you have guessed the next chapter to this tale, but let me tell it to the bitter end: Once the pan was free and I was juggling it in my hands I felt I had gotten home, only to find, about four seconds later when I tried to extricate it from the exhaust pipe's horny grip, lo! the exhaust pipe would not let its prisoner get away! No matter which way I tipped and turned the thing, it would not go past that pipe. STUCK.

OK. My options, since the removed pan was damaged and couldn't be usefully replaced, was to either 1) Call a tow truck or, 2) Call a tow truck. I was prepared to do just that--waiting til after dark so the neighbors would not see the results of the big league mechanical work I had been performing before their very eyes all morning and half the afternoon in the driveway.

I took the car off the jack stands and went into the house. I picked up the phone and thought hard about a lot of things. Then I put the phone back in its cradle and decided to sleep on it. In the morning I jacked up the car again and studied the bent pan. It wasn't as bad as I remembered it being. In fact, when I bent it back (with a vice grip pliers) as far as I could to its original shape it didn't look half bad. Now, if only I could get a gasket on it, I could at least fill it will oil and drive the car to a repair shop instead of having a big loud noisy showy tow truck coming to disturb the peace of the neighborhood.

Not being able to fish the gasket under the block from the front of the car, I took off the passenger side wheel, removed the splash guard and had just enough room to squeak the gasket between block and pan, and work it past the oil pump. Then, after much innovative action with regard to aligning the gasket holes with the holes in pan and block, I bolted the pan back up,put in 4 quarts of oil, took car out for a good drive, parked it,and, with heart beating, got down and looked underneath. Happy me!! No leak! Next morning I look again. Still no leak!

Well, I'm still in the tunnel, but I think I see a light. I feel I have bought myself a little time so that I can learn how to get that flex pipe out of the way at least enough to allow the old (rotten) pan to get out and the new one in. Does anyone have any experience with this situation? Can I just loosen the exhaust pipe harness or hanger that is back toward the middle of the car and then bend the pipe down at the flex enough to get the pan out? Or do I need to somehow unbolt the flex pipe where it comes from the catalytic converter? The bolts are completely caked and frozen with rust.