on the oil pan?

 

Yup.

 

good luck with that jbweld.

you need real weld.

 

Well the good news is you know the problem.m

 

My favorite local garage recommended I try JBweld, so I will. Worst that could happen is that it still seeps.

 

In order for JB Weld to stick, it needs to be clean. Drain the oil, and hit it with some acetone to get to bare metal. Wire brush it, too. If you try to do it with is still seeping, all you'll get is a huge mess.

 

depending where on the pan it is (I cant tell) hit it with a drill just a little bit (0.03" deep or so)

then sand it down in the areas around it and JB weld.
If that doesn't work, plan on bringing it to a weldor to have them weld it up. though to weld that, you will be through drilling it, welding a pass, grinding down and then welding another pass.

Welding oil pans are the worst welds to make sure that they don't leak (on used pans)

 

Thanks for the advice guys . yes I plan to drain the oil tonight and clean the spot really well. Leave it sit overnight, clean it again and do the jbweld job tomorrow evening.

For the drill trick, should I do that asking the entire split? I'm afraid I'd do more harm than good.

If I were to pull this off for a proper repair I think I'd be shopping for a new pan.

 

I think its 50/50 whether you should dig into it with a drill.
on the 1 hand, its always a good idea when welding and patching cause you want rough surface for things to "stick" to
but on the other, if you open it up and it ends up still not working, you'll likely have a much bigger leak and/or render this pan completely useless, even for temporary use

 

Make sure to get it nice and hot before draining the oil, so it drains really well. You won't have to leave the plug out or anything, as long as the sump is mostly empty for any excess to drain away from the crack.

Make sure to wire wheel, then clean with brake cleaner. Otherwise you're just wire wheeling a bunch more crap into.

Pro-tip: use the JB weld packaging to mix your weld, as obviously anything you mix it in will be welded and thrown away.

Pro-tip #2: tooth picks or chop sticks make great JB welding guns.

 

Is there any particularly good way to draw the oil out of the crack? Like, after draining, obviously the crack itself will still have oil in it. Just clean it really really really well and then apply the JB weld?

What about a torch? hehe...

There's like 0 clearance to get to this thing, steering rack and line is in the way.



aggressive wire brushing = wire wheel? Don't see how I'll get a wheel in there...

 

Zoom out bro, can't see ****. Is that the front of the pan, behind the steering rack?

If that much oil can get through, high pressure brake cleaner from a can will get through easily. It'll clean it out nicely. I thought it was horizontal, being vertical like that should be even better.

 

Labels help?

That's a good point. OK. *whew* I'll get this finished tomorrow night. Wife will be gone. Too bad my seat won't be here yet.

 

Yeah can't quite see from the pics where the crack is on the pan.

Good thing is there's no pressure involved to speak of, so JBweld will seal it up just fine.

Before you do anything to it after draining the oil, I think if you just leave a paper towel on it, that will wick out as much oil from the crack as you're going to get. Then brake clean it, sand around it if you can't get a wheel to it, brake clean it again, and you should be ready for JBweld.

Not sure what's in the splatter radius of that spot, but you'll want to keep the brake cleaner off of belts etc.

 

Loosen the engine mount bolts and jack the engine. Or disconnect the PPF and let the engine rock on its mounts. Or both. You can get yourself a lot more clearance to work without a bunch of disassembly/assembly.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. Will report back.

 

Small update on the seat. Got it yesterday. Seat looks really really nice, love the look, and it feels pretty good. Padding is quite firm.

However, just sitting in the seat with it sitting on the floor, if I push back and move my upper body side to side there is a LOT of flex in the seat. Like... a LOT. I can grab the top of the seat and push down on it and get a lot of flex. I'll see if I can shoot a video so you guys can see just how much flex there is.

I'm going to go ahead and mount it, since it looks like the rails will bolt right on and it'll fit right in, easy peasy (I hope I'm right). But at this point I'm thinking this will end up sold or on the passenger side. It'd be perfect for some 120 lb kid in a civic who just wants a sweet looking seat.

 

Maybe pulling the steering rack will save you some headache. I would try JB weld first, if that doesn't work, just swap out the pan. Welding a casting that's be soaked in oil is going to a huge pain in the ***.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. After serious cleaning the JB weld really seemed to stick very well. I didn't have much room to work but the chopstick reached just fine

Driving over to josh's this afternoon to do some swapping of MSM body parts. Will of course check the leak as well. Hope to get my flexy seat mounted as well.

 

After a visit to CSTG the car's appearance has improved dramatically.



Kinda makes the quarter look worse almost...


Edit: Looking at this again, It's really easy to see the difference in color on the new parts. Chances are good-ish that I will swap my stock driver door back on. Who knows. I'm just an indecisive ****.


Seat installed


Sits me pretty high, and it's really quite flexy. Oi. I'm going to try messing with the padding because it is very firm (which is nice) but very thick (which isn't nice).

I would NOT recommend this seat overall though. It's cheap cheap cheap and super flexy. Looks great though... Like I said before. A narrow one of these for some skinny kid in a civic would be just fine. But not for me in a Miata which will be driven aggressively.