Jeep Strokers

I finally started putting together the lower end, and found the girdle had to be moved out 3/16 for comfort. After doing this I realized that the oil pan was resting on the girdle. After reading a few post I started to adjust mine, here is how it went for me. Things I used were white grease, 2 inchX 1 1inch channel 1 6X 6 wood post 24 inches long, 1 bottle map gas ,ball peen hammer, and a door skin hammer, or rounded end hammer ,one permanent marker. I took the white grease and put a thin coating on the girdle from the front to the oil pump ,and laid the pan on top to mark where it was hitting. then I took the wood block and laid the channel on it toes up and laid the pan on that . I then took a permanent marker and marked about an inch outside of the grease impression. (the marker will burn off)I then took the map gas and heated a section at a time and started at baffle and worked my way to the front, I got it hot to the point that I could see the metal just starting to turn red and laid the body hammer on the area and started hitting it with the ball peen. I did about a 3 inch section at a time until the entire length was worked down. then put the pan back on the block and marked the high spots where the grease still hit, and worked them the same way individually. At this point I realized the baffle and the 2 girdle nuts where the baffle started where making contact, so I greased the 2 nuts and marked the pan. I heated this area up and dinged them down with the ball peen, I took some red tin snips and cut the baffle back to where the pan drops down. I then bent the baffle where it was cut down to the same clearance from the pan as the rest. I also slightly bent the baffle its entire length. I did this until there were no grease marks on the pan during test fit. And then added the gasket and secured it for the last time. I have a few pics on the phone Ill try to get down loaded. I hope this helps , this took about an hour and the pan does not look beat up too much. ( it doesnt take a lot of force , to bend and it didnt distort it either)

Why did you need to move the girdle 3/16? Mine was only moved 1/8 or less and seemed to not have any clearance problems...hasn't been run yet though. If you splurge for the Felpro blue oil pan gasket...it has a fairly thick metal core so it adds approx 3/16 to the clearance on the pan. I was more worried about my HV clearance but its all good with the blue gasket

I moved mine 1/8 and it did clear, But I wasn't comfortable with the clearance. So I added another 1/16the. I used the blue gasket also, and snugged it to 20 ft.lbs. I wanted to make sure the oil had plenty of room to flow so as to not leave any close tolerences for sludge or build up to be trapped. Maybe it was overkill, but in my mind I know oil will circulate and there wont be any thing making contact. an 1/8 of shim left about a strong 32nd clarence from the rod to the girdle. I know things should not grow or shrink that much, but heat an high rpms concerned me. Thanks for the response

How much thread engagement do you have on the those nuts now? Doesn't sound like you have too much. Might want to consider using some loctite on them.

FYI, the oil pan bolts only get torqued to 84 inch lbs for the 1/4-20 bolts and 132 inch lbs for the 5/16-18 bolts. Thats 7 ft lbs and 11 ft lbs respectively.

Thank you , the nut was one thread shy of full, and I did use high strength loctite ,and you are correct on the torque specs,Noted, hopefully the pan isnt overtightened