Oil Pan Fix Pt. 1

Unremarkable title tonight. Too bushed from work to be creative. The day job, that is. Good news is I have so much vacation time I'm required to use by the end of the fiscal year that I'm taking every Friday off (alternating with my 9-80 Fridays off) through July 4th weekend. Yeah. "Hot Rod Boot Camp," as my GF says.

Here's the quick update, with just a couple pictures. More coming later. Forgot to take the "after" pictures when the pan was out in the sun. Had beautiful weather last weekend, so dragged the oil pan out and cleaned it up (the little residual oil and sludge that was in it) with some Gunk Engine Brite and Off Oven Cleaner (hey, whatever does the trick). Don't ask where the runoff went.

Here's the hole Pick-n-Pull punched in it to drain the oil. Hard to tell scale here, but I can easily fit the end of my pinkie finger in there.



After cleaning the pan, I proceeded to very clumsily pry and pound away at the puncture with a combination of screwdriver, awl, and eventually pick hammers and a heavy body spoon. Did a halfway decent job of cleaning up the metal and flattening it out from the inside. Next, I'll break out the torch and try to relearn brazing to close up the hole. Will probably practice on some junk metal first, to get the hang of it, then just go for it.

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