VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 Oil Troughs

As i come nearer to starting this newly overhauled engine I am going through the posts in the "Chevrolet Four Cylinder Engine Rebuild Discussion" document. one of the items it mentions is to put some grease in the oil pan troughs to make sure the tangs on the rod ends are immersed in the troughs as they rotate. Well as you can see from the attached picture that #1 and #4 just barely touch the grease. Rods #2 and #3 do not. I measured the drop of the tangs from the bottom on the crankcase and compared that to the depth of the troughs in the pan. Sure enough there is no way the tangs will splash oil. As a quick fix I thought I would use a crowbar and mover the troughs up a little, but that's not going to happen. Those troughs are not going to bend.
Now how can this be? It makes no sense. Any ideas from you engine guys out there?

Ah, another challenge! Think about how great you'll feel when you have all these problems solved and you start it up for the first time!!

Ray Holland's "School is in Session" document mentions adjusting the height of the oil troughs, but I don't remember what he said about it.

When you bolted the pan on, did you use a shim to simulate the gaskets that was too thick (thus lowering the oil pan away from the block)?

Ever onward, Dean

Hello Richard, Sure does not look good. I certainly would not want to run it like that. If you can not find another pan then you will have to repair yours. I would build a jig that would fit in the ends of the pan. Mark everything as to direction, and fit. Figure out how much you want to move the troughs and pop the spot welds out of one end. Then raise the troughs up against your jig and have a sheet metal shop re-weld them with their spot welder. If you think the spot welds wont come apart easily you could carefully drill them out. I dont think they are supposed to contact much, something like 7/32". Others may have different tips. Please keep us posted as your solution may help someone else.

If you can't get them to touch by using thinner gaskets, try without any gasket at all, if that works just use RTV or instant gasket

I had just the rear dipper that didn't reach the grease when I did mine, a ruler laid across the other troughs showed that the rear one was lower.

With a block of wood across the top of the pan (metal might have damaged the gasket surface) and using a soft faced G clamp I managed to ease it up level with the others, so it can be done with care.

Bernard

I agree that you do need to get the dippers deeper into the troughs. I think you will be surprised how much you can "massage" the troughs to get them higher.

One other thought is to determine if you can get the dipper lower on the rod cap. On my '37 I was able to bend the opening in the dipper itself to make it lower. I used a combination of squeezing the sides of the dipper to make them as straight as possible plus gently prying the end of the dipper down with a wide screwdriver.

Great ideas I'm going to give these a try this evening.
Thanks!!
Rick

Rusty (great online handle!), your idea of bending the dipper is a good one, but unfortunately only applies to the 6 cylinder engines. The 4 bangers have a tang-type dipper that is cast with the rod end cap and cannot be elongated.

All my best, Dean

The troughs will bend up a little with minimal pressure. You can always MIG or TIG weld a small bead on the bottom of the tang. Caution: you don't want the tang to long. It idea is to have the tang to dip only deep enough to create an oil mist. That is small droplets that will circulate in the lower engine. Kin to a 2 cycle engine that is lubricated with a mist of oil from lubricant mixed into the gasoline. Large droplets of oil will not circulate and lubricate the cylinders and wrist pins.

Why not try heating the troughs up at the lowest point with a small oxy-acetylene flame and very gently lever the ones up that are too low?

I was able to squeeze the sides closer together and at least get the tangs to touch the grease in the troughs. I put a clamp on each one and pulled them up to a 2 x 4 across the pan. I was able to raise them up just a little bit more. The problem is that was bulged the sides of the pan out a little. I think the torch is a great idea. I'll give that a try. Thanks

One hokey idea is to add sheet metal sides to the inside of the troughs that stick up a little higher, thus effectively raising the level of the oil puddle to meet the con rod end tang.

You could pop rivet them in place so they wouldn't dislodge and cause damage.

Dean

I had thought about that Dean. I would probably braze them on. Nothing is off the table at this point. It would be good to know how they got this way.

Could the tangs on the bottom of the rods be different lengths? Different versions, side effect of machining or maybe aftermarket?

All of there parts are out of the original engine. I have given up trying to massage the troughs to be deeper so it's time to just man up and braze on some pieces on each trough to make them hold more oil. I just have to have the nerve to start. Just got through with a blizzard and aren't going anywhere. I just have to drag the torch from the shed to garage through a foot of snow.

Hi. A couple of years ago I used the method that CPJ'S mentions on my 1922 490. here are some pictures: Before, preparations, the tool, heating, moving the throughs carefully, after, after with grease.
[img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-hR1yQy_T3Iz85ia[/img] [img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-hVufx4QNqYIR05Z[/img] [img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-g_q7EhQ7OKEtny2[/img] [img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-hHFUaPKuoYjard0[/img] [img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-hJcrJNesqRz6ZF_[/img] [img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-hCtupX-lIWP6Msc[/img] [img]https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuuN9Kc0fezw-hORSBVUZpyWV1hK[/img]

Reference back to Dean's post.

Hi Dean,

Thanks for the clarification about the dipper design. I am a relative "newbie" to the vintage car world. My primary experiences and knowledge are driven by the work I have done on my '37 and what I have learned from Chat and the members of the Cedar Valley Region. That is why I try to be as specific as I can when I post. I appreciate inputs like yours to keep everything correct. And I learn!

Your comment about my online handle is interesting. The reality is that is the nickname I was given by my family when I was very, very young and still use today. I never remember being called by my given name. My parents said it was because my very red hair almost looked like it had rusted in the rain. The hair is still there but more blonde/red these days.

Sorry for going off topic. Hope the forum masters are not too upset.

Shade Tree Mechanic
Thanks for the great pics! I am going to go out and get ready to try using your methods. It's great to have this knowledge available to those of us new to these engines.

For those of you that have been following this thread I thought you should know I solved the problem. Using the Shade Tree Mechanics suggestion to look at the links he provided and using the same method using a wheel puller I was able to pull the troughs up the required amount. In fact I pulled one up a little higher than it needed to be and had to push it back down. You can see by the picture below how I did it.

Excellent solution!

Congrats! Dean

Ahh..., beautiful solution. Simpler and smarter than mine ...

excellent!

A picture is worth a thousand words, and probably a thousand dollars. I have to raise all 4 on a 1918 490 and now going to pull the pan on my '28 as I didn't check it when I put it back together. Only driven it 30 miles since rebabbiting so hope it didn't hurt anything. Thanks for posting the picture!