Road Star

[druz]

A few weeks ago I had the rare opportunity to get out for a drive. I tagged along with Willywongka and a friend for a leisurely, due to traffic, jaunt up Skyline Blvd on a beautiful fall day. After a great pit stop and chat at Alice’s Restaurant, I decided to take the fast way home on the freeway.



Unfortunately for me, before the drive I forgot to adjust my suspension from the a bit too low ride height it was at, <4" at pinch weld. Any undulations in the road at moderate speeds caused showers of sparks according to the poor E46 behind us on Skyline. I thought it was from my exhaust which shows many scars from over the years. Freeway speeds plus a good sized dip almost caused a catastrophe. Almost immediately after the horrible sound of metal bashing asphalt, smoke started to fill the cockpit. I pulled over, grabbed my fire extinguisher and looked under the car, only to find nothing. Soon the smoke cleared. I was almost certain it was oil, but my oil pressure was holding steady as well. Many years ago, shortly after finishing the engine swap, the oil pan was dented after hitting a large pot hole during some “testing” along some dark, industrial roads. I feared the pan had taken another hit, but maybe I was wrong. I hopped in and started back home, quickly accelerating to get up to freeway speed. Again smoke filled the air, but as soon as I backed out of it, it started to clear up again. As long as I maintained a steady throttle everything seemed fine, so I carried on and limped home 12 miles at 65mph. I pulled into my driveway and shut it off, going into the garage to get my Quickjacks into position to inspect the damage. I came back out to find a slick of oil starting to creep down the driveway, maybe ½ quart at that point plus who knows how much lost during the drive.



Fortunately it’s a 7 quart pan so I quickly pulled in, but being so low, it took a little longer than usual to get the car up and another quart or so made it onto the garage floor.



After the long clean up process, I was able to see how much it was going to cost me. It didn’t look horrible so I got onto dropping the pan with hopes of repairing it.



But why didn’t I see any oil when I stopped on the side of the freeway, or lose oil pressure? I’m surmising that the trap door baffles in the pan were keeping the oil away from the crack while the engine was on and it was still circulating. Unless the pressure got high enough like during acceleration where it was forced out and onto the exhaust. Once I turned off the engine in the driveway the pan started to fill up and run past the baffles and out the crack. Unfortunately those baffles also made it impossible to fully clean the area around the crack on the inside of the pan which would make welding difficult. I didn’t have much to lose so I hit it with the TIG and while the bead is probably pretty porous due to the contamination, it’s seeming to hold up so far.