Sourcing An Oil Pan

As most of you all know, the Pinto project grew to encompass much of Brian and my time. Early in the project, we made many trips to the junkyard for parts (more on that in other posts). One fitment issue we quickly discovered was the engine we had was a rear sump (for a Mustang) and we needed a front sump pan. Off to the junkyard.

We always had a shopping list of vehicles to check, and in this case we found what we needed in an old Econoline van. Great! This is when we discovered the main issue for the day. This van had the old Ford Twin-I-Beam suspension. That consisted mainly of two long control arms that were about 2/3 of the width of the vehicle; this meant they crossed each other in the middle. Both had to be moved out of the way to get at the pan. We weren’t about to pull the engine for this, so we needed to remove the suspension.

Since Brian had thought to bring along his cordless Swazall in our toolkit, we were set! I guarded the van while he went to grab the tool. He got back after a while & we set to chopping the arms in two. We soon discovered this was easier said than done. Not surprisingly, Ford put some tough steel in those parts. After exhausting two–yes, two–fully charged batteries we had to give up & go home. To recharge the batteries.

After an hour or two, we were set to make another assault on the van & returned to the yard. We immediately set about cutting again. We got some of the oddest looks  from guys walking by. This just increased the entertainment value for us. Eventually we determined that if we used the bottle jack from the van we could expedite things by flexing the arm & eventually breaking it.

While we were at this, some guys ignored all the horrible noise coming from under the front of the van and climbed in the back to take out some interior pieces. Their mistake.

Eventually, with Brian cutting and me jacking, the last of the arm gave way with a resounding BANG!. The whole truck shook 7 the body acted as an echo chamber. And those guy jumped out as if someone jumped in the front and shouted “INS!” Ok, that was wrong, but it fits the situation. Needless to say, we were giggling uncontrollably.

At this point, we were able to pull the oil pan out and go home to start our experiments on it. That poor pan got cut & Frankensteined so much that we got to worrying about being able to continue welding on it.

That final release of the Econoline I-Beam suspension always gave Brian and I a chuckle afterwards.