N52 oil pan design for Z4 engine arm based swap

[Striker01]

A little more trimming on the baffle for the dipstick and level sender. Tacked the baffle together and started welding the last piece of the pan on.



The last corner that had to be figured out, plenty of extra metal from the pan pieces in the SCS plans.



Rest of the final piece welded in place, fit right together.



I also added the connector holder for the level sender.

[Striker01]

Fully welded and flat. The first time we welded it on the inside as well, decided to skip that this time to try and keep it flat. It warped the side of the pan pretty good so I hammered it back out the best I could.



No on to the dipstick, just trying to copy hoveringuy's setup here as well. Mocked it up with the last piece of the pan held in place with magnets. My goal was to get the full indention on the dipstick about 1/4" below the top of the wing.




Got a little crazy trying to cut the hole so I decided to MIG weld the inside, had some pretty good gaps to fill.



TIGed the topside and sanded the inside of the opening to keep from tearing the o-ring.



Media blasted the pan and this last piece one before welding it up. Decided to cut the top of the baffle out, where I will be able to get to after the pan is sealed. I wanted to be able to get the flaps in and trim for the pickup after having the pan powder coated. I later decided to paint it instead, so I could've trimmed for the pickup clearance before sealing up the pan and not had the hole in the top.

[Striker01]

Oil pickup done, next step is to figure out the dipstick and M20 oil level sender. I want to keep the oil level light working on the overhead panel, only reason I'm adding it to this pan.

Marked where I think it will work best, I just needed to make sure it wouldn't interfere with the baffle sections. Cut a hole and weld the flange on.



Fully welded and realized we got a little too much heat into it. Don't think this will work, good thing I have extras.



A little work on the belt sander and start over.


This time we welded it slower and with the sensor clamped in place, minus the o-ring.

[Striker01]

Test fit after welding just to make sure it didn't move to much.



Baffle partially slid in to make sure the pickup is in the right spot before welding on the brace.



The brace was pretty simple. I had to sand the tubing slightly to get it to slide through the hole but fit great otherwise. Pulled the pan out, cut a short piece of tubing, snugged up the bolts and tacked it in place. I'll get it final welded when we seal up the pan.

[Striker01]

Once I was pretty sure it would work I trimmed both pieces of tubing close to flush and used the extra from the brace for the caps.




The step I didn't get pictures of was measuring from the bottom of the pan to the pickup tube. Once I had that distance set I put a single tack on the jetta pickup to flush it with the bottom of the pan. Then a couple more tacks on the Jetta pickup and off to my brother's for final welding.



All sealed up and ready for the brace piece.

[Striker01]

Next I needed to notch the tubing to get around the part of the oil pump that sticks out towards the back, under the pickup hole. If you notch about half the diameter of the tubing it will clear. I tried to use a 7/8 hole saw but without a drill press and the part clamped down it was a nightmare, I got the pickup piece done that way but did the second one with a band saw and dremel. Here is how they turned out.




Next I tacked them together for a test fit.



And the test fit.



It does angle towards the front slightly, that was to keep the pickup from hitting the back divider on the baffle. That's what the blue tape is representing. Ideally I would've notched it closer to the oil pump but with a press fit I wanted plenty of surface area between the stainless and aluminum, just to be safe.

[Striker01]

Here are a couple shots of the pan test fitted on the engine. Lots of clearance except for my tie rod boots, maybe 1/4" there. Great ground clearance, I don't have any pictures but I'm sure its higher the M20 pan was.




Then on to what I think is the most difficult part of the pan assembly, the oil pickup. So far everything has been done with basic tools except the welding. For the pickup you really need someone with a lathe unless you could research and find an O-ring fit tube that will fit the N52 oil pump.

I used 1 1/4 x4" of aluminum rod and 24" of 3/4ID 7/8OD stainless tubing; 12" would be more than enough. I also ordered the stainless pickup brace, that Hoveringuy designed, from sendcutsend. The pickup is one I ordered for a VW Jetta, I'm pretty sure he designed the baffle around that one. It's compact and the tubing has a 7/8' diameter, I cut it off right below the bend. Sorry I forgot to get a picture of it.

Here is the brace he drew up in CAD. The bonus is that the extra you cut off is just enough to cap the two 3/4" pieces of tubing required for this way of doing it. I'm copying hoveringuy's setup for all this, its working great for him and his car gets driven much harder than mine ever will.



I used a local guy for the lathe work, it cost me $100 for 1.5 hours of his time to machine the pickup. I took him the original pickup for dimensions and he turned the aluminum rod down to match then press fit the stainless tube inside with a bit of loctite for good measure. I meant to order stainless rod and just weld the tubing onto it but either I ordered it wrong or I got shipped the wrong stuff. That was a couple months ago and I don't remember where I ordered it from to check who messed up. Aluminum is way easier to work with so this probably worked out better and after watching how much it took to press in the rod I'm not worried about it leaking.

Here is what I had when he finished.

[Dwes]

Am here for all the little Details ..!!!perfect

[Striker01]

Finally made some more progress on the pan. Got a bottle of Argon that we think had some CO2 mixed in, that set back progress significantly; made the torch spit and spark and left a bunch of pin holes I had to grind back out. My brother did a great job welding the pan and fixing the mess ups from the bad gas and where I thought I could do it. lol.

The N52 bedpan worked great as a welding fixture, he went around removing one or 2 bolts at a time and replacing them as soon as he finished a section. I ordered some M8 x25mm flange stainless bolts to use for welding. It was about $20 for 30 of them on amazon.


Once the main flange was welded he hit the rest of the seams. Outside perimeter is welded except for the wing piece that will get done after the pickup tube is completed. Waiting on a guy with a lathe to help before we can fab that up.





Off topic but I messed up a couple spots trying to weld part of it myself, fortunately my brother was able to get them fixed. After watching him weld for a couple evenings I wanted to try it out again. He had some really thick stuff he is using to make some legs for his tool box. He turned me loose while coaching over my shoulder, TIGing is awesome I'd love to get good at it. Here is my attempt. I won't show what I did to the thinner metal on the pan, it wasn't pretty.

[Striker01]

Still waiting on my brother's help to get the pan fully welded. I wanted to try my hand at CAD so I came up with a studded mount for the original M20 oil level sender. Happy it came out right because I had to order 7 to avoid paying the minimum order fee with sendcutsend. If any of you guys order this pan I will have extra I can send you.

Wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, the mounting holes are about 3mm north of centered on the actual sender body. The studs are M6 x 1.0.

[Striker01]

My plan for the opposite-side-of-wing corner didn't work out. Hoveryinguy suggested I use a bed plate as a welding jig. Found one on ebay cheap. I'm glad I ordered it because I found a problem when I test fit the pan. The corner bolt needs more clearance to work correctly. Hammering that corner probably would be fine but I ordered that piece in metal too thick and like doing things the hard way I guess!

Time to butcher work I've already done.



I had a piece of a floor pan that looked like it will work and the thinner gauge will bend easier if I need to persuade it later.



A bit of work and 3 pieces where I had one, hopefully I'm good now. Still needs a little finagling but I'll do that as we do the final weld, tough to get enough heat for the tacks to stick well to the flange.





Good news it the bung will work, drain bolt doesn't interfere with anything.

[Striker01]

No big update yet. Waiting on an N52 bedplate to use a welding jig for the flange, another hoveringuy idea. It should be here Saturday and hopefully my brother will be able to TIG it up Sunday.

Here are a couple pics of the wing-cap mocked up and. I had to grind maybe 1/8" off on the edge that sits on the flange, not much at all. It will get welded last, after the oil pickup is set. and the baffle is installed.

The first picture has the second corner that will have to be fabricated. More than enough metal from the wings that got cut off the rear-main piece do to both corners.




Here is the bottom piece of the baffle with flaps installed.

Flap part#


Baffle inserted. I'll trim the rear pan overhang just a little, so it doesn't overhang the baffle.

[Striker01]

Here is another of the corner piece, opposite-side-of-wing and main-pan from inside.



I may not be able to get a torque wrench on the corner bolt but it will go in no problem. Steel pan bolt is just for reference.



The oil bung is is M18 x 1.5, thanks again to hoveringuy!! Here is the drain plug I ordered. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XC1YMLR...roduct_details

My plan here was to get the drain hole as close to the bottom of the pan as possible. I held it in place and traced it on the opposite-side-of-wing piece. Then I drilled it out with a step bit and finished sizing it with a dremel and routing bit, a little at a time. The corner required a little hammering to get rid of a small gap. It sits flush against the main-pan piece.




I won't tack it until the drain plug arrives and I'm sure it will clear the main-pan bottom.



That's as far as I've gotten, more to come.

[Striker01]

The main-pan was pretty simple. Flush with the inside of the front of the flange and centered on the rear-section. It was already tacked in the previous 2 pictures, here is a pic where I got it flush with the inside of the front part of the flange.



The oppsoite-side-of-wing went right on. Here you can see why I notched the rear-section, perfect fit against the main-pan except for ordering it in the wrong gauge, mine is thicker than designed.



The corner between the main-pan and opposite-side-of-wing piece will have to be made from the metal cut off the rear-section. I used masking tape on the outside and traced the shape from the inside to make a template. Leave a little extra for shaping, better to grind it a little than have to cut a new piece.



Here is the corner is piece, it took a little hammering to get it to fit nicely. I wouldn't suggest hammering on it with it in place, I broke a few of the main-pan tacks that way.


This corner won't work, ends up I don't have clearance for that corner bolt!! . Please see post #43.

[Striker01]

The first pieces I tacked were the very-rear to rear-section. I didn't get a pic of that before tacking it to the flange, I just used the magnets to hold it and aligned it with the edges of the rear-section, while both were on a flat table. Then I tacked the entire section to the flange with the flange clamped flat to the table, it had a slight bow on arrival.



I tried to get the inside edge of the very-rear piece flush with the inside of the flange and the rear-section centered so the overhang on each side was even. I attempted to bend the rear-section a little more, to get the overhang on the sides a little less, but this thick metal wasn't having it with my basic tools. It's a tiny bit wider than the main-pan piece so I notched it a little (pic later). There still should be plenty of room to weld it and get the bolts in. Here is a pic looking down into the pan.



If you align the outside of the pan pieces (from the other side) with the burn line left from laser cutting, it will be very close to flush on the inside. Here's a pic of the burn line I'm referencing, it goes all the way around the flange.




Here is where I notched the rear-section where the main-pan overlaps it. I did this after the rear-section was tacked it would've been easier if I'd realized it needed it before tacking the rear-section to the flange. I notched it so the wing-top-cap and oppisite-side-of-wing pieces could sit flush against the main-pan. The main-pan piece is designed to overlap the rear-section. It took just a tiny bit of grinding the angled edges of the main-pan piece to get it to sit on the rear-section nicely



The notch pictured here, on the flange, is the alignment mark for the rear portion of the main-pan section. Pic looking inside the pan.