jerm1386

Backstory: jiffy lube cracked my oil pan

i have a crack in my oil pan at the drain plug, presumably from when jiffy lube put in a self-tapping bolt to cover up their mistake of stripping the threads on my oil pan. It's too cold for me to bother replacing my oil pan at this time of year, and I'm to cheap to pay to have someone else put a new pan in. so for now I patched up the crack in the pan with some aluminum-reinforced epoxy. That should hold it until springtime when I can take a weekend to put a new pan in the car.

So here's a DIY for any of you who encounter a similar problem.

What you'll need (in addition to the tools needed to drain your oil:
sandpaper: anything from 80-220 grit should be OK
dremel/drill
milling/abrasive bit capable of making a thin (1/8") groove in aluminum
PB blaster
soap
rubbing alcohol
paper towels
quiksteel aluminum-reinforced epoxy
a good deal of time

first things first: drain your oil


Here's the drain plug they put in. it has a significantly larger head and thread diameter than the stock plug.


you're going to need a lot of time (especially in the cold) because that bad boy is going to have to drain until it's not even dripping once a minute. you want as much oil out of the way as possible, so there's less that can seep into the crack while the epoxy is curing. it was under 30° when i did this and I had to wait about 2.5 hours for the pan to stop dripping

Next, take your drill/dremel/whatever and make a groove along the crack. don't go too deep as it may weaken the metal, but you want to give the epoxy a lot of good places to hold everything together


once you've made the groove, take your sandpaper and rough up the whole general area that the epoxy will be in. Now you need to clean off the pan. I accomplished this with PB blaster, then soapy water, then rubbing alcohol. after the PB blaster you may wish to sand the area down some more (i found this helped a great deal with getting the epoxy to stay put in the cold)

now all that's left is to mix and apply the epoxy. spread it over a fairly large area, as the more surface area it can grip, the better its chances of holding on are. just make sure it won't interfere with the drain plug or drain plug washer.


let it sit overnight, making sure to put a sticky note somewhere to remind yourself that you shouldn't drive the car before tightening the drain plug and adding some oil. in my case, the car being up on ramps was a pretty good hint but I figured it couldn't hurt

VietGuy03

iTrader: (4)

Good to you!

Sorry to hear about the mishap. I am assuming that Jiffy Lube did not take responsibility for damaging the threads/oil pan then? If not sorry about that, I would have hoped that they would have given that a larger than recommended drain plug was installed or used by the Jiffy Lube Associates.

silver3.5

that's exactly why i never go to places like jiffy lube or quick lube or speedy lube! i learned my lesson a long time ago from jiffy lube. even if i froze to death, i would rather do my own oil change then to give it to one of those places......