oil pan repair

[dusterbd13]

i just got the 3.4 dropped into my s10 tonight. filled it with oil. started a small leak at the drainplug. tightened drainplug, looked at it. its got a couple of pinholes from where the pan was crushed somehow.
what i need to do is repair the pinholes.
i really dont want to pull the engone back out to get the oil pan swapped out. that would make me even more discouraged than i already am.

anyone have any experience repairing these? its steel, but i cant weld.

my thought was to clean it really good, get all the paint off, scuff it with 80 grit to give some texture, and JB weld the hell out of it. dont know if this will work, though.

let me know what to do to repair it.

thanks
michael

[96lumina]

JB weld will work fine as long as you can get the oil to stop dripping...what I would do is drain the oil and let it sit a while to drip out...then clean the area with carb cleaner and let dry...it might take several days for the oil to work its way down from the top of the engine so try jacking the car so the oil will pool in a different area of the OP...after sanding the area and your positive that the oil will not spoil your repair you can get started mixing the JB weld...you'll need some wide blue masking tape to hold the JB weld into place...figure out how big an area you'll do and tape out an area that will more then cover your repair...you can use your side window to lay out making tape but make sure it's clean...overlap the edges at least 1/3 the width of the tape...now pull the large piece of masking tape off the glass and set it sticky side up...apply the JB weld on the center so you will have a sticky edge on all sides to trap the JB weld...apply the tape to your pan with the JB weld in the area you have pin holes...try to keep it as flat as possible and make sure all edges are stuck to the oil pan to keep the JB weld from dripping out...if you end up with some dripping out then just apply some more masking tape to contain the epoxy...wait at least 2 days before removing the tape so the epoxy will be nice and hard...the tape will actually pull right off as if it was on glass...you can feather the edges and paint.

Hope this helps.

[pocket-rocket]

JB (and the plumbing company Oatey) make like a JB stick that you can slice a piece off of, knead and use. It will stick there just fine as it's about the consistency of half dried out Play-doh. I used some to fix a pinhole in a water pump housing on a minivan once

[RedZMonte]

cant you drain the oil... clean the surface and hit the pin holes with a tac weld... Oil should just burn not catch fire i was under the impression... My oil return nipple for my turbo was welded on to the pan while on the car.... No fires here.. i would just weld it and not worry about the puddy getting cracked or scraped off and start leaking... assuming you can access the pin holes from under the car.

S

[3400beretta]

JB weld should work if you clean it REALLY good and make sure there is no oil residue. Or you can use some of that gastank repair putty and you don't even have to drain your oil. Stuff works great, I did an oilpan on an old cutlass that was rusted pretty good, still didn't leak when the car was junked like 4 years later.

[96lumina]

dusterbd13, sounds like you have many options.

Good luck with the repair