Oil leak (ugh)

[cnutting]

Have a small oil leak at the temperature sensor bung in my oil pan (Canton). Not huge, more of a weep, but driving me crazy. Tightened, still there. Tried backing out the sensor and adapter a bit and adding permatex on the threads, still there. Short of draining the pan and starting over, any suggestions? Part of me suspects the weld on the pan, not the cleanest looking weld, but I like to assume that I did something wrong first.

[Bobby Doug]

My oil leak is in the weld of the pan. I have been trying to decide whether to live with it or remove the pan and have a second weld done.

[NAZ]

If it's in the threads and not the weld, remove the sensor and bushing and clean them with solvent to remove that gooey Permatex. Inspect the threads for damage and replace damaged parts. Now use LocTite PST on the threads and reinstall. If that doesn't take care of your leak I'd bet it's not leaking in the threads and you need to double check the welds.

[AC Bill]

JB Weld will stop an oil leak, if it's the weld. You would need to drain the oil, clean the area around the weld extremely well, with acetone or some good quality solvent de-greaser. Mix up some JB Weld, and carefully smear a layer all around the bung. Give it time to cure, and you should be good to go.

[cnutting]

Thanks for the tips guys!

[Bobby Doug]

JB Weld will stop an oil leak, if it's the weld. You would need to drain the oil, clean the area around the weld extremely well, with acetone or some good quality solvent de-greaser. Mix up some JB Weld, and carefully smear a layer all around the bung. Give it time to cure, and you should be good to go.

Thanks for the tip about JB Weld. I am guessing it should work on the 90 degree angle too.
Doug

[AC Bill]

Thanks for the tip about JB Weld. I am guessing it should work on the 90 degree angle too.
Doug

Just don't use JB as a thread sealer, or on something you may want to remove one day. I've used it on copper hot and cold water pipes, sink goose neck drains, oil pans, fuel tanks, etc. Just make sure the surface your applying it to is clean, and you may want to give smooth surfaces a light sanding for better adhesion (bite).

[cnutting]

Mother nature has been conspiring against me through March, but I was able to drain things about a week ago. Cleaned it all out and used the Loctite PST. I actually went back and redid all of my threaded connections in the engine compartment to hopefully minimize leak chasing in the future. Filled oil today and after a couple hours things looked pretty good. Problem solved? Not quite... After some more time I started noticing a tiny weep.



I could go through the drain process again, then clean and JB Weld the bung area, but will this mask an underlying defect that will crop up later? If this is the weld, does Canton really pressure test their product?

[CraigS]

I can't imagine that they do. Think of what it would take to cap off the top of the pan to be able to pressurize it. I am thinking try JB now w/o draining the pan. It took over a couple of hours for the weep to show. What is the setup time on JB? Clean it w/ lacquer thinner or acetone, wipe on some JB and cross your fingers. Worst case you will need to grind off some JB to redo it later.

[cnutting]

As with most things I'm learning from this build, it will take some more work to fix, but in the end it will be worth it. Mike Forte will be bringing me a new pan to replace this one. So... new pan time. But, great customer service from Mike and for that I'm grateful.

[rich grsc]

Putting on a new pan is 10x more trouble than fixing the one you have, plus it'll probably leak too.