Thanks!! You have definitely given me a nice Rabbit Hole to go down on my lunch break. Those look like a nice solution to a lot of problems I was thinking through
Thanks!! You have definitely given me a nice Rabbit Hole to go down on my lunch break. Those look like a nice solution to a lot of problems I was thinking through
Last night I spent some time drilling holes for the bulkhead fittings through the floor and laying out some of the hard line. I had a lot of trouble with a nylon hose I was trying to put an AN fitting on. The nylon braiding would separate from the hose underneath and keep it from fully inserting into the hose end. I think I might try supergluing the braiding to the outside of the hose so that I can push it into the hose end fitting as one piece.
That usually happens when hose and hose end are different brands.
wvumtnbkr said:Do you really want that much oil (any really) in the meat sack compartment? That's a lot of Slippery flammable stuff!
I know that wouldn't pass tech in lemons or champcar. I would be surprised if it's okay at most tracks.
That being said, I don't know ANY specifics of how dry sumps are normally fabricated and where the parts normally live.
Mine is similar but in front of the harness bar because my car doesn't have a passenger seat area. The passenger side floor is raised about 12" or so to allow the exhaust to pass through for side exit. The oil tank is mounted such that the bottom just pokes through the floor for access to the drain plug. The oil catch can and filter are mounted on the top door bar. It's quite frightening to think about so I don't. But it makes for very easy access to everything. When I change the oil from the tank through the bottom. Then I disconnect the return line and run it into a container and drive the oil pump with a drill until it dumps whatever is left in the engine.
In reply to jimgood :
Thanks for the insight! Do you happen to have a picture? It's always nice to see how the pros have done it
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
Let me know if you need more. It's hard to get a sense of depth here but the passenger side "floor" is under the cooler so the bottom of the tank, which is cone shaped, protrudes through a hole in the floor just big enough for the bung. It's also slathered around the bottom with a bunch of silicone to reduce vibration, almost like it was put down with a mortar trowel.
The catch can has a bung under it for drainage and top comes off for inspection. The cap is loose for air flow. There is a mesh wad under it to separate the oil from the vapor. I don't know who makes this can.
The oil filter is just under the fitting you can see here. It's mounted so you can fill a new one with oil and screw it in place after an oil change. The line to and from the filter is the return side. EDIT: Also, when I do an oil change, I can drain the tank, close it back up, then disconnect the line to the oil filter and put it in a container. Then I can pull the belt off the oil pump pulley and drive it with a drill until the oil stops flowing into the container. I doubt this gets every bit of oil out of the system but I think it's good enough.
I haven't really taken a close look at the mount but my guess is that the horizontal aluminum parts are manufactured for the curve of the tank and made to hold the band clamps. The band clamps are also purpose-made with grooved rubber under the metal band. They hold it very securely. I think the vertical bars were added by the builder. I know the tops of the verts are bolted through the harness bar. I don't recall how the bottoms are mounted. You can also see where the "floor" bends down along right where I wrote "To pump".
The whole thing seems sketchy but I think even if the door bars took a good hit, there is enough movement to keep lines from rupturing. The oil filter? I don't know. The tank is mounted in just about the most secure area it can be.
In reply to jimgood :
Thanks, this is incredibly helpful! Your images are above and beyond what I could have hoped for. It's nice to get a detailed breakdown, it seems like there's a million way to handle these things haha. You haven't had any trouble passing tech with the tank exposed like that?
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
No issues with NASA. I have not been through an SCCA tech yet. Maybe next season.
In reply to jimgood :
Wonderful! I'm still planning to build an enclosure a little later on down the line, but this is encouraging that I might be able to do some shakedown runs without too much pressure. I'm going to try to finish everything with the oil system and have the car running and driving again by mid-September for an autocross event for some initial shakedowns, and we'll see what I have time for from there.
Welp, I took the exhaust header off tonight, but it looks like I still won't be able to remove the pan all the way unless I removed the engine. The pickup tube extends too far to the passenger side of the car and there's a welded cross member under the front of the pan that restricts movement too much, so I can't seem to drop it down/over far enough to clear the pickup tube and lower the pan. I really don't have the time or ability to pull the engine right now, maybe I can stick the pan back on without totally removing it. The hard part would be getting the old gasket material off...
No matter how much I think I've cleaned this car, I still find acorns, dirt, and leaves stuffed into random places. It's almost like a flood car lol.
Love the boom tubes! If you could have those sand blasted a coat of Rusty Oleum would make them look good and last a bit longer....
Can you lift the engine off the mounts just enough to get the pan off?
Well, it's been another month and I finally had a free night to work on the car. Every time I start to build up a little momentum it seems I can't maintain it and life gets in the way again. It's hard to stay motivated enough to go out into the garage sometimes, but I know I'll get there eventually, one small step at a time.
Anyway, I thought about my oil pan situation and decided MiniDave's plan was the best one, and really shouldn't be all that difficult. The engine is face-plated, so If I undo the four bolts at the plate and the two at the transmission mount the whole package should be able to float freely. All I need to do is lift the engine up about 5", so I shouldn't even have to disconnect any fuel or oil lines. The radiator hose doesn't have a lot of extra give so that will likely have to come undone, and there's a strut bar that I'll have to take out, but aside from that it looks to be pretty straight forward.
I borrowed an old engine hoist from my future brother in law this week and cleaned the garage and got it set up tonight. I'll see if I can borrow some hoisting straps from work, since the faceplate has some holes in it that would work well with soft shackles and straps instead of a chain. With luck I'll get the pan off some time this week, but who knows, it may be another month until I get a chance to post again :/
I finally got around to pulling the engine up and removing the pan. Some things I discovered:
1. The engine cooling system was filled with actual antifreeze. This is good since it sat outside for so many years.
2. The pickup tube is annoyingly placed and makes for a difficult removal
3. The oil pan reservoir is pretty small, which reinforces my plan to go with a dry(ish) sump system. The pickup tube was set about as far to the right and back of the pan as it could have been, and I would have worried about oil starvation on right turns. There are no baffles in the pan or anything. Everything covered by the screen in the picture is dry-sump shallow and adds no capacity.
4. The bottom of the pan is coated in thick, gluey sludge. I'll be cleaning it out very soon.
5. Weirdly, there are no holes for the oil hoses that went to the "oil pump" that I took off the car. The bungs are likely just tacked on to the side. So I'll definitely be using the internal oil pump as a lifter pump to get the oil to the tank.
Did you ever buy a welder? If so, what did you get?
Great thread! Stay motivated!
Updates? 
I don't know if he'll want me spilling the beans, but he's getting married in a couple of weeks - I expect he'll be pretty busy with that for a while yet!
In reply to MiniDaveoh
Oh my! Congratulations!!
It's true! I haven't really touched the car since I took the pan off, wedding planning has got me deeply occupied :) I also just had to do an emergency fuel pump replacement on my truck that used up all my spare "car time." But I did order a new pan gasket and I do hope to have the pan back on and the engine back in before I get married.
After the wedding I'll be moving into my wife's place, so that means leaving the cars behind for a couple of months. I won't be making much progress on the car until I'm reunited with it in the summer, but my goal is to have the car finished and on track sometime in 2024. Thanks for your interest, people on this thread are so nice :)
In reply to MiniDave :
Oh, and I did buy a welder off of Amazon a while back.
I haven't got gas or used it yet though.
No pictures, but I did get the pan cleaned up and back on the car last night. What a pain, that welded crossmember is really, really in the way. But with the help of my brother we were able to lift it up and around the pick up tube into place.
Also, I found a ball bearing in the pan. I have no idea how that got there or where it could have come from, but everything seemed ok so I'm just going to assume it's one of those weird instances where I never solve the mystery. I hope I'm right.
Sure it was a ball bearing and not the ball on a pushrod? That's the only ball like thing I can think of.
It looked perfectly round to me, not like it had broken off anything, but I'll check again tonight. This is the best picture of it I have on my phone.
I wonder if that's some kind of check ball out of the old oil scavenge pump?
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