[jimjaz]

Bob,

I've not had the "pleasure" of having to remove a pan off of a 2wd version; only my 4x4. Unfortunately, even removing the flywheel from the crank rear (which would involve pulling the transmission and such), the oil pickup tube would most likely still be in the way of allowing the pan to clear.
The only way I'm aware of in your situation would be to hoist the engine from its' perches enough to slide it forward on the trans input shaft and then lift it enough to get the pan to clear the obstacles. That's a bunch of work for a pan pull.
Why do you need to get the pan off? If you have leaks at the front or rear main seals, then that could indicate another problem.

For what it's worth; when I drove this 4x4 Suburban beast back to Phx from Southern Cal years ago, I thought that the ride home was pretty rough, but attributed it to the old mud-n-snow worn out tires, like they were square and not really in round, if you will. I stopped for gas about midway (of course), and checked my oil level- I had used at least a quart of oil and found a pretty good size puddle of oil coming down out around the rear main seal and it freaked me out. Then found during restoration that I had a pretty good shimmy with the engine idling or otherwise- an unbalance situation. I pulled the tranny out, and no change, then pulled the clutch and pressure plate assy, most of the shimmy went away. I took the clutch assy along with the flywheel to King Balancing local here in Phx. When it was ready, he reported the flywheel to be something like 7 grams (not a bunch) out of balance, and the (previous owner replaced) clutch and pressure plate assy to be like 87 grams out of balance. HUGE! No wonder the poor engine was struggling and leaking oil. Good thing these big V6's are tough, or I could have blown the whole thing up driving from Cal to AZ. After I installed these balanced components back, she runs like a real happy camper- no more vibration, and magically the rear main oil leak stopped, except for the occasional drop or two. Moral- balancing rotating parts is very important and saves any engine from an early demise. I was lucky.