A while back when we were retrieving the GMC Safari minivan from our friend's house, I ended up breaking the right side mirror on the truck. The driveway at the house was super narrow and barely able to accommodate the big F250, much less any smaller vehicle. As a result, I ended up hitting some lumber that was stacked up against the fence post that was against the house, breaking it from its mount. Now this mirror was already repaired once for the same reason after we accidentally broke it while moving a fence panel past the truck many months before. I ended up putting the mirror back on the base, using Gorilla glue to secure the mirror to its base. This time I did the same thing with the exception of removing a small screw that helped hold the mirror together. Through this hole I drilled into the upper body that holds the mirror glass. This allowed me to pass a long wood screw through the base with the hole and up into the upper body, holding the two pieces together. Gorilla glue finalized the attachment of the two sections. With the mirror fixed yet again, I installed it back on the truck, taking care of that little mishap. Now for the FMT. I wanted to test fit the rear sump oil pan with the side mounted dipstick bung to see if there would be any interference issues with the left motor mount, oil filter or K-member when I install the dipstick tube. First I had to mount the pan in place, which would involve lifting the engine up again. After positioning the crane and hooking it back to the chains that are still on the engine, I also jacked up the truck to give me the clearance to allow my fat ass to slide under the truck more easily. The next problem I noticed was that I still couldn't slide the oil pan in from the back, due to the angle being too steep to allow the front of the oil pan to clear the oil pump. I had to put the pan in from the front, the same way I pulled the old oil pan out from the front. But, due to the pan being a rear sump, the crank pulley was actually in the way. Luckily the pulley is separate from the harmonic balancer, so a few bolts was all that stood in the way of getting the pulley out of my way. After doing some eyeballing, I ended up pulling the pan down and reorienting the dipstick bung to be at about a 10 degree angle due to the idea that the dipstick was unable to even go into the bung at a higher angle since the motor mount was right in the way above the bung. From the way it looked I would have to put the dipstick tube in at the same angle, going forward under the power steering pump. If I use the current dipstick, checking the oil would involve me having to reach under the PS pump to grab the dipstick to draw it out. Once I had the bung oriented the way I wanted it, I used a few bolts to secure the oil pan to the block so I can have it still when I do the final fitting of the dipstick. I can still orient the bung if need be by using pliers to slowly turn the bung wherever I need to. The funny thing is with the bung at the angle it is, when I test fitted the oil dipstick on the outside of the bung, the tip of the dipstick sat just below the level of the oil in the pan, based on the line I marked on the outside of the pan. This just showed me that I can still go with this dipstick with no ill effects other than the idea that I'll have to reach under the power steering pump. To place the dipstick in the bung I'll more than likely have to use some epoxy to place the tube in the bung. Only a little bit would be needed to get the seating started, with extra pressed around the tube to fully fill the gaps around the tube. Now, another thing would be me finding some tube that can be bent easily and has the same dimensions as the dipstick tube that would fit in the bung. I could then place the tube in at the 10-degree angle then bend the tube up to allow the tube to come up behind the power steering pump and just use a long dipstick to fill the extra length of the tube. In the meantime, the current dipstick tube has a loop that I used to secure the thing to the oil pan using a nut as a spacer and an extra-long bolt to go through the loop and the block, holding everything together. Either way, we'll be ok with the setup.
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