oil pan hole(welded??)

question?? on my 92 cougar 3.8,the can bottomed out in a sink hole and right by the oil plug on the pan, it hit and caused a small rip or hole in the metel on the pan,the plug itself seems fine the damage is about 2 inches to the side of it in a flat part of the pan,is it okay to weld it shut,what type of weld is correct?? any do's or don't s to watch out for???? thanks

Reply to
robert -wanda fox
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First, please locate a few of the lesser-used keys on your keyboard and use them more often as called for. The spacebar is the big wide one on the bottom, and the "shift" keys to make Capital Letters are on each side.

If these keys are used properly (like capitalizing the first word in sentences and proper names, a period and two spaces between sentences, and making a paragraph break between different subjects) it makes it a whole lot easier to read what you typed, quickly and without eye strain... ;-P

Now then, back to your questions...

There's nothing wrong with welding up a hole in the oil pan - but before wasting the effort fixing the old one, see how much a replacement will cost. If you have to pay someone else to do the repairs, it might be cheaper to find a good pan at a wrecking yard.

I fixed one oil pan myself where it rusted through, but I have all the equipment already. Replacements are not readily available for a

1940's Willys MB generator engine, you fix what you've got.

Get it off the car and cleaned up first - solvent tank and sandblast or bead-blast with glass bead media. Look for any other rusty spots and make sure the sealing face where it bolts to the engine block is not damaged.

Get a body hammer and some sort of a backing support - a piece of 1" black pipe clamped in a vise with a pipe cap screwed on the end, with all the markings ground off smooth to provide a smooth rounded anvil surface would be perfect.

You need to carefully tap (not beat) the damaged spot flat and close up the hole before you try welding it. You may have to take an oxy-acetylene welding torch and heat the steel in the damaged area to a medium red to get it to bend back flat without a big fight.

And if you fight with it and beat it to death with a hammer, you can stretch the metal and end up with a warped potato chip - this is bad. Then I would have to explain the techniques of metal shrinking...

(Or you can cut out the damaged area and make a square or rectangular patch to fit - but that's a lot more welding. And on fussy stuff like welding sheetmetal, less is better.)

Once you have the pan back in the right shape, you can weld up the ripped area with whatever welding process you want. I use MIG wire- feed welding because it is the easiest welding process to learn, the equipment is reasonably priced and readily available. Both flux-core wire and gas shielded wire are easy - gas-shielded is cleaner, but you have to buy a CO2 bottle and the regulator kit.

But if you already have the gear and sufficient practice either oxy-acetylene, TIG or Stick welding would work. It's thin sheetmetal, so if you use Stick you need to be very good, use very small rod, and get the amperage just right. Or all you'll do is just blow big holes in the base metal, and make the problem worse.

Repeat the welds from both sides to make sure it's really sealed, and you won't have a leak later.

Put the drain plug in the hole while welding and grinding, so any weld splatters won't find the thread area or the sealing seat area and create more problems.

After it's welded, use a die grinder to clean up all the weld areas and make sure the weld metal really penetrated the base metal - if the welds didn't penetrate the sheetmetal you can see it when you clean up with the grinder, they will peel right off like a scab. (Clean it up and do it again.)

Then bead-blast again as final clean-up before you do paint prep, primer, and at least two good coats of paint. (You don't want it rusting after you went through all that effort.)

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

You will get away with brazing it, whether you patch it or just seal it (depends how bad you've ripped it). It will have to come off though, so it may be cheaper and easier to replace it.

Reply to
RustY©

Reply to
robert -wanda fox

I haven't worked on that car, the only Ford product I work on regularly is the Company Owned E-250 van.

That said, there are a lot of front-drive cars where you either have to lift the engine up a bit or take apart part of the sub-frame "cradle" to get the oil pan off and past all the obstructions - and if you have to take any of the suspension points apart you will need to have the front wheel alignment checked when you are done.

Go get a Service Manual for the car at your local auto parts, and it will spell out the procedure in enough detail for most people to get it right... ;-P

The Chilton or Haynes books should cover this well enough, and they are not expensive. Or you can find one at your local public library, take lots of notes if they won't check it out.

And yes, while you have the car up on jackstands and are under there with a floor jack and wood cribbing (or a real transmission jack) lifting up the engine to get the oil pan off and back on, that would be the time to slide in a new motor mount. You are going to have to unbolt one or more of the motor mounts to get the engine and transaxle assembly to lift up far enough anyway.

If one motor mount is bad, change all of them - they're all the same age. Same reason you change headlight lamps in pairs, they both have the same hours on them and it saves you the trouble of doing it again next year.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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