Is it really that hard to weld up a oilpan?

[Anlushac11]

8)

I have been toying with the idea of dropping a US 250 into my 80 Mustang. I know the main obstacles are a rear sump oilpan and the pickup tube.

I was under the impression that a oilpan was not that difficult to weld with a MIG welder but my friend said it is all but impossible and that I would be wasting my time and should stick with dropping in a 200.

Is this that difficult a task? and how hard is it to adapt a 200 pickup tube to the 250?

 

[63comet]

I just got my 250 oil pan back from a place here in NY, It had several small pit holes and the drain plug was almost totally rotted all the way around. They silver soldered all the pin holes and welded in another drain plug , and then coated the entire outside of the pan with a product called Renu, which is used to coat the inside of gas tanks. It looks like it will work fine. So, Yes you can weld or silver solder oil pans up.

 

[Anonymous]

oil pan welding is much more feasible than the cast iron welding thread from last week. need to thoroughly clean and degrease oil pan. remove all paint within an inch of the weld seam. surface grind/ prepare the surface on both sides inside and out within a 1/4" of the weld, using a high speed grinder.

i use gas for this kind of work , same exact work as major chopping bodywork, but you dont need to get as fancy on the hammer welding.

you need a fine tip and 1/16 wire sticks. for me this allows the best control and least amount of rework. i build on extra material for the whole seam which allows for Hi-speed grinding work to finish it out nicely.

you cant chop the oil pan up too much or you will lose the geometry and flatness. ny experience has been with deepening, to add a couple quarts capacity. this has left the whole upper pan in tact.

An expert Mig welder can also do this job with the same prep but using wire feed and gas shield. it will make the best looking job. but if you dont get the settings exactly right, and or are not very smooth you can make a real mess.

 

[Anonymous]

the biggest single problem that i foresee would be warpage of the pan from the heat. I would think ideally that oz/accet welding while pan is bolted to the engine block (probally best -one that is old dry and throwaway)to keep gasket base from warping. I have torch welded gas tanks, oil tanks etc many times -take into consideration volitility of any fluid residue. I used to rinse things out with diesel fuel then carefully take the torch to it and burn off the diesel. I would thing mig or tig might be better but have no experience with either so i don't know.

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

I would get a hunk of some MDF and drill and bolt the pan to it before cutting or welding anything. I would cut the old sump off and fill that (giving a sumpless pan) and then add the rear sump on top of that (without cutting an opening yet) then cut out for the rear sump after it is welded on. then lots of grinding.you might want to leave a lip fromt eh "flase floor" so that you could put in a baffle over the pickup. (maybe something that simply rivets in place)

 

[hasa68mustang]

I had some issues around my drain plug, so U cut it out and welded one in from a 1941 chrysler.... then when "I hit a sign and did some dukes of hazzard stunt work" -mustangsix2, I put a crack in it, which was easily fixed with a MIG welder.... I didnt seem to have any problems...

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

the key thing is just to have it clean. if there is any oil in it your welds will be crap and be full of voids.