Toyota Camry Solara Engine Oil Pan TRQ OPA07816

Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years! We're dedicated to delivering quality auto parts, expert customer service, and fast and free shipping, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. We've created thousands of videos to help you install our parts with confidence. That saves you time and money, so visit us at 1AAuto.com, your trusted source for quality auto parts.

In this video we're going to be working with our 1998 Toyota Camry 2.2-liter 4-cylinder. We're going to show you how to remove and replace an oil pan. You can do this process either to replace a rotted or broken oil pan, or you can follow these steps to simply reseal the pan if it's leaking at the gasket.

If you like this video, please click "subscribe." We have a ton more information on this car, as well as many other makes and models. If you need this part for your vehicle, you can follow the link down in the description over to www.1AAuto.com.

Here are the items you'll need for this repair: 10-14mm sockets or wrenches, ratchet, socket extension, torque wrench, breaker bar, oil, oil filter, funnel, brake cleaner, razor blades, paper towels, gloves, wire brush, penetrating oil, rubber mallet, flat blade screwdriver, bungee cord, gasket sealer, drain bucket, jack and jack stands

Open the hood and secure the hood prop. Remove your oil cap by spinning it off, counterclockwise. Place it somewhere safe. We're using a lift to raise and support our vehicle, but this job can easily be done in the driveway on a jack and jack stand.

Now, when you get underneath your vehicle, you'll notice that you have two oil pans under here. This can be a little bit confusing. However, the best way to tell is we removed our oil cap from the passenger side, which is where our engine is on this vehicle, while our transmission, which also has an oil pan, is over on the driver's side. We'll be removing this 14mm drain plug on the passenger side, not the Allen key here on the driver's side, which would drain our transmission and cause a whole bunch of issues when we re-filled our motor and had an empty transmission.

We'll use a 14mm socket and ratchet to remove this drain plug with our drain bucket underneath. Now when the drain plug gets to the end of its threads, you'll want to lift up and away to try to keep the oil from getting on you, and keep a good grip on that plug so we don't drop it into the drain bucket.

Reinstall your drain plug once your pan is finished draining out. You can just leave that in there, finger-tight, since we're going to be replacing the oil pan anyway. Then wipe any excess off with a clean paper towel or rag. We'll be removing the front pipe of the exhaust to get our oil pan out, so we'll want to spray these three studs here with some penetrating oil before we start. Now this is a stud and nut style connection on this exhaust, so lubricating the stud from the top and the nut from the bottom means that we have a higher chance of getting some of the hardware out. These are the same studs and nuts on the bottom side of this flange that we just lubricated from the top. We'll spray these with some penetrating oil as well.

We still have our drain bucket underneath. Between the fact that we've now loosened the studs and the nuts, we should be able to get the hardware off. Using a 14mm deep socket extension and a ratchet, we'll try to remove either the nut or the stud from all three points on the flange. You may need to upgrade to a breaker bar. Now this nut, here, would remove this hanger from our exhaust, however, it looks pretty damaged and rusted and it's tough to get at, so we're going to remove these two 12mm bolts and just take that whole bracket down with the exhaust so we don't risk breaking anything.

We'll use a 12mm wrench and we'll have to take these off evenly so they don't get stuck against the bracket. You can see that bracket is detached now. We'll finish removing this hanger and the rubber hanger, all the way at the back here, so we can hang our exhaust down, and hopefully remove our oil pan without needing to disconnect this flange here, because our bolts are all corroded and damaged.

To make it easier to remove the forward hanger, we'll remove this rear one first. A little bit of penetrating oil in the rubber hanger makes it a lot easier to remove. Just grab it by hand and pull it over the end of the stud. We still don't have quite enough room to remove this hanger, so we'll take these two 12mm bolts off and bring the whole hanger down off of the sub-frame with a 12mm socket and ratchet. Be sure to remove the last bolt here slowly, especially if you've already undone the rear hanger and the flange at the front, because the exhaust is going to want to hang down as soon as we get this bolt out.

Now so we don't hang on our O2 sensor wire here, we'll just take a bungee cord, or you can also use zip ties, mechanics wire, whatever you want to use, go right back through that factory hanger. Now we take the weight off of our O2 sensor, but we can still move our exhaust around and get that oil pan out. Remove this 14mm nut so we can get the rest of the exhaust bracket out of the way. We'll do this with a 14mm socket extension and a breaker bar. It's not that long, so you can switch to a ratchet if you want to.

However, we'll just get that couple of turns out of it with this and remove it. Remove these two 14mm bolts with a socket and ratchet to remove the exhaust hanger plate here. We'll also have to remove this 14mm bolt at the top of the bracket with a 14mm wrench. Once you get it loose, you can remove it the rest of the way with a ratcheting wrench, if you have one available to you. Once this bolt is out, you'll be removing the main bracket, as well as the bracket that attaches to the bottom of the exhaust manifold. Be careful not to drop or lose either of them. This insulation is removed from the oil pan by getting a finger behind it there and pulling it out. It may tear there in the middle. Remove these two 10mm bolts with a socket ratchet and extension so we can remove this dust cover from the backside of the oil pan. Make sure you hold onto that plate as we remove the last bolt here, so we don't drop it and risk bending or damaging it.

Remove the nineteen 10mm bolts that encircle the bottom of the oil pan with a socket, ratchet, and extension as needed. You may need to change the set-up on your ratchet a couple of times to get the best swing to remove all of these bolts. Be sure you set up a drain bucket underneath the oil pan before you start removing hardware, so any leftover residue in the pan or motor will be controlled instead of dripping onto the ground. You may need to tap it a little to release some of the sealant. Use a rubber mallet so you don't dent the pan.

Once you've got that sealant loose, you can remove your pan from the engine. Now, if you're just re-sealing your old oil pan because you have a bad gasket and your pan isn't rusted out and leaking through, like ours is, you can use a razor blade to remove all of the old gasket material from the mating surface on the pan. You want to make sure that you clean out the actual inside of the pan. When you're done, you can see that some of it falls in there while we're cleaning it off. We're not going to do the whole thing, because our pan is rusted out. We're going to have to replace the whole thing, but the steps to seal it and re-install it will be the same regardless of whether you're using a new pan or your old one.

There are little channels in here that you'll have to scrape out as well. Once you've got the bulk of the material off, you can use a steel wire brush to remove the little stuff. This will also tear up any rust or loose paint that is on here, which is good because that will create issues when re-sealing. Again, we're not doing this whole thing, but you'll want to repeat this process and make the rest of your pan look like this. Once you've got all the bulk of the material off, all the material and all of the loose paints removed, spray some brake cleaner onto a clean paper towel. Wipe down that surface. Now you're ready to install gasket sealer on here once the brake clean has dried.

We can reseal to the bottom of our engine. Here we have our old oil pan that we removed from our vehicle and our new part from www.1AAuto.com. As you can see, with the exception of our old part being dirty and full of debris here, our new part is exactly the same. We have the same bolt pattern, the same mounting surface, the same depth, shape and capacity of the pan, and even comes with a new drain plug down here. These pans can rot out from getting dirt and debris and road grime all over them. It just sits on there, it's difficult to wash off, and often gets overlooked. They can rot out, get rusty or soft, and cause you to lose oil slowly or, if you hit it bad enough, you can lose all of your oil all at once because the pan has become cracked. If you have a leaking, rotted, or damaged oil pan, this new part from 1A Auto is going to go in direct fit, just like your original equipment and fix you up right.

Using a razor blade, remove all of the old gasket material from the mating surface for the oil pan at the bottom of the engine here. Now you're not going to be able to get all of it off, but get as much as you can. Then we'll go over it again with a wire brush. It's important that this surface be as clean as you can possibly get it, to ensure we get a good seal on our oil pan, because this engine does not use a gasket, it only uses a liquid gasket maker, which requires a very clean, smooth surface to attach properly. Once you've got the bulk of the material off, you should be able to strip the rest with a stiff steel wire brush. Spray some brake cleaner onto a clean paper towel or a clean rag, and wipe off all of that residue and debris from the mating surface. We want to make sure that this is as absolutely clean and dry as you can possibly get it. It does seem like a lot of work, but the more time you spend here making sure that this surface is nice and clean, the better your seal is going to be. You'll make sure that you don't have to get in here and re-seal this pan again.

Now we're installing our new pan from www.1AAuto.com, but this process will be exactly the same if you're just re-installing your old pan, because it had a bad seal and was leaking out from the top and not through rusted holes in the actual body of the pan like ours was. You've stripped down all your old material, you've cleaned everything off, wiped it down, removed all of the debris from the inside, and now we're going to use some gasket sealer. You can use whatever kind you want, here, or gasket maker. I prefer the gray stuff because it tends to seal everything up. It handles oil and a bunch of other liquids, so this is a really good thing to use and it's high torque, high strength.

We're going to lay a thin bead all the way across, through the channels here, right over the bolt holes. Wipe it on, change our gloves real quick, and then get it onto the bottom of the engine and start all of our hardware because this stuff is time sensitive and we don't want it to dry and harden while it's on our pan and not sealed against our motor. You can see I'm going just about the width of the channel there. That's good because a little bit of this stuff goes a long way. Especially once we torque everything down. A good thing to keep in mind, when you're doing this, is all the stuff that squishes out and goes over the outside edge there, when we tighten it down, the same amount of stuff comes onto the inside, which means it has a chance to break apart, get into our oil, potentially clog our pick-up screen or other oil passages inside the engine, and it can cause a lot more trouble.

Get all the way around the perimeter of the pan. We'll cap off our sealer so it doesn't dry out while we do this. Just use your finger with the glove on and spread this stuff out, nice and even, all the way across the bottom of the pan. There we go, we have a nice even coat on there. All of our metal is covered.

Change our gloves out real quick so we don't smear it all over the outside of the pan. Get your new pair of gloves on to make sure you don't get this stuff all over your hands, because it is pretty tough to remove once it dries. We'll place this against the bottom of our engine that we've already cleaned and prepared, and start installing our 10mm bolts. Be very careful not to touch any other components while you put the pan up. Get it set into place, and start installing your hardware. Don't tighten anything down just yet. Just make sure you get a little bit of hardware in the middle and on the corners so we can tighten that stuff down first ,and get that seal starting while we get the rest of our hardware in place.

Using your 10mm socket ratchet and extension, this is a good time to use a small quarter inch drive ratchet. Go ahead and start tightening the bolts down. Skip every few on the first pass around to make sure that it gets tightened down evenly. You don't want to crank these or torque them yet. You really just want to get them to touch because we have to let this gasket sealer cure for a little bit before we can put our final torque on it to make sure that it seals properly. Once you finish tightening down all of your hardware, check your specific gasket sealer's instructions for the cure time, but usually it's 10-15 minutes before we can put our final torque on the bolts. Torque your oil pan bolts to 48 inch-pounds.

Now we made a mistake when pulling apart this plate and the insulator that goes on top of it. Fortunately, it's nothing critical and it's easy enough to put back together. This insulation plate was supposed to stay onto these studs and get pushed up behind the pan, then have the two 10mm bolts reinstalled and tightened back down with a 10mm socket and ratchet. Reinstall the exhaust mount and the two 14mm bolts at the bottom. We don't want to tighten these down all the way yet because we do still have a bracket to line up on the topside. We'll just put these in finger-tight for now.

Now we have to line up the top of the exhaust mount bracket here, as well as the bracket that goes to the manifold. We'll lay that over the manifold stud, line up the bolt holes at the bottom, and install that 14mm bolt as well. Install the 14mm nut onto the manifold stud here and tighten that down all the way with a socket and ratchet. Finish tightening down the bracket with the three 14mm bolts, using the 14mm socket and ratchet, and a wrench of a ratcheting wrench on the top bolt. Remove the old exhaust gasket from the end of the pipe. You can use a flat blade screwdriver just to break all of that debris out of there.

Install your new gasket. Remove your bungee cord and reinstall the back of the exhaust into the hanger. Push the front pipe back up into place. We'll reinstall the two 12mm bolts on the front pipe hanger. Just do that by hand for now. Re-install these two 12mm bolts in the front bracket here, at the bottom of the transmission. Again, these are all just going in by hand for now. Using the 14mm socket and extension, we'll go ahead and install the three 14mm nuts back onto their studs. If yours came out as studs, don't worry about it. Just make sure they go back into the hole that they came out of. Once we've got these started, we'll use our ratchet to tighten these down all the way. Make sure they're all tight.

We'll move onto to tightening up that remaining 12mm hardware. Tighten down the two exhaust hanger bolts with a 12mm socket and ratchet. Use the same socket and ratchet to tighten up this bolt on the bracket. The 12mm wrench to tighten up the last bolt. Since you had to drain your oil pan, in order to replace it, we will be re-filling it with fresh new oil. We'll change the oil filter while we're in here, just like we would for an oil change. Now this exhaust can be very hot, so be careful when removing this.

Now you may need to use a pair of oil filter pliers to get in there and twist this off, but usually you can just grab them and remove them by hand by twisting them counterclockwise. This runs down the front of the engine if there's any oil left in there, so make sure you have a drain bucket underneath, just in case. Put some fresh oil on your finger and lubricate the gasket on the end of your oil filter. This will keep it from getting stuck against the engine and make it easier to remove, just like our old one was.

Make sure that this gasket came off and isn't still stuck to the mating surface. If it is, peel it off. Install your new filter as tight as you can by hand. Put a funnel into the fill hole on your valve cover to keep the mess to a minimum. Fill the engine with 3.8 quarts of your favorite 5W30 motor oil. Ours has a lot of miles on it and has always been run on conventional, so we'll use that, but if you keep yours on a synthetic or a synthetic blend, that's fine too.

Now there's roughly a 1,000 ml in a quart, so we'll bring out oil level down until we have 200 ml left in the bottle. That will be just about 3.8 quarts. It's actually just shy of a 1,000 ml in a quart, but that difference isn't going to matter. Here you can see we have about 200 ml left, which means our engine has 3.8 quarts in it. We'll fire it up and confirm that that level is correct. If it is, we'll cap this and keep it in the truck in case we ever need some oil down the road.

Remove the funnel, reinstall your oil cap, and start the vehicle. Allow it to run until the oil pressure comes up to the normal range, at which point we'll shut it down, allow the oil to run back into the pan, and check our fluid level. Now our particular vehicle does not have an oil gauge on it. We'll just fire it up, let it run for a few seconds, and then shut it down to make sure that the oil fully fills out filter, and check the level from there. After you've allowed it to sit for a minute, remove the dipstick, wipe it off, re-install it, and check your oil level. We need to add just a little bit of oil, so we'll top it off, check it again, and then we're good to go.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.