Desert Nomad

So I've finally decided to replace my 4qt. oil pan with the correct 5qt. By the way, its a '67' 427/390. I procured one from a vendor down in San Diego. It claims to be original and seems to be well made, in fact in Canada. I figured this would a fairly simple R&R, but nothing seems to go that way on a Corvette no matter how well you research and pre-plan. It came with a baffle and instructions saying that, on pre- 69 engines, you must remove the existing baffle and replace it with the supplied one that comes with the pan. Ok, so I got the oil pan down, but there is no baffle. I take it that on some 427's, mainly high performance(435's & L88's), that they did have baffles. Mine dosen't. Maybe L36's didn't have them, I don't know. My service manual only says that some hi-perf engines had them, which one's, I'm not sure. So at this point, it ain't gonna get a baffle as it didn't have one anyway. So I go to install the pan, and right away I've got interference somewhere in the back of the pan mainly around the baffling which this pan seems to have more of than the old 4qt. pan. So, at this point I'm thinking, this pan is gonna fit one way or the other. I got some modeling clay and put it around what I thought was the interfering areas, installed it and figured out what was hitting. This pan had more baffling in the rear so I had to trim some of it away but finally got it to fit properly. My oil pick-up clearance seems to be 'ok' at just over 3/8" which will work. So I'm at the point of permanently reinstalling the pan. I would like to get some input from the forum on this baffle issue though. The reason I've described what I'm encountering here is that a while back, one of the forum members was having the same issues with a pan that I have. I think he finally gave up and put the original pan back on but I'm not sure what his end result was. I always understood that all BB 65-74 Corvettes have 5qt. oil pans but now realize that not all 5qt. oil pans are the same. Anyways, stuck some pic's with this to show ya what I got.

George, (Desert Nomad)