I got my car running perfectly. Even with the 2.87 gear in the rear I was smoking the tires at 35% throttle (according to Calmap) and was getting 19 mpg in the city. I was happy. Except for a small tranny leak that my transmission guy said he'd take care of and a very small water leak everything was great!

Well, Friday morning I noticed a small oil spot under the car. I traced it up somewhere in the vacinity of my oil pressure sending unit. I never liked the way I had installed the unit. It had one brass 45 degree angle and one 90 and then it stuck up in an awkward position under my SuperRam manifold. So I figured that's where the leak was. To make a long story short, I broke my sending unit and then broke the brass elbow leaving the threads inside the block. Tried to get it out with some little tool (can't remember the name) my mechanic gave me and it actually caused a hairline crack around the fitting in my block. Now I have the threads of the brass elbow and a really small crack in the block. I REALLY don't want to take the engine out to weld it. Any suggestions? Can I mount my oil pressure sending unit where my oil temperature unit is with a "T"? Any help would be great!

By the way, upon closer inspection I realized that the oil leak was actually around the distributor which would've been REALLY easy to fix. BLAH!!

 

Sounds like he gave you an ez-out, those damned things ought to be outlawed. They are almost as hard as diamond and brittle as glass. Your lucky you didn't break the damned thing off in side the hole. I have no idea of what you can do, you're going to have to plug that hole somehow. You can reposition your oil sending unit, but you have to figure out how to plug the hole and stop the crack.

 

If you can get at it with a right angle drill, then drill it out and put a heli-coil in it. That should solve your problem. Good luck, and by the way "I'm The King" of stripped out threads. I feel your pain :smash:

 

Yup, it was an E-Z Out. I used the short kind that dosen't brake as easily (I guess). Unfortuantely, it just kept threading itself in until it cracked my block instead of pulling the brass threads out. I was thinking about threading the brass plug that's in there and putting welding compound or something of the sort around the bolt and on the crack and hoping for the best. Thanks for letting me know that the OP sending unit will work where I want to put it. That's a relief.

 

If you are going to try adding goop to it, my suggestion would be JBWeld... that stuff will work wonders...Hope it works for you. :cheers:

 

This is my oil pressure unit. I have a blind plug at the location you are describing so it would not de difficult to find a fastener and plug it.

I find it difficult to believe that an E-Z-Out would crack the block. But if it has you can use JB Weld. Or something similar.






[Modified by paul79, 9:10 AM 12/29/2002]

 

Well, the block is definitely cracked and the crack got bigger with the EZ Out Whether that initially caused the crack or not I don't know. This dosen't look like your typical EZ Out though. It's only about 1.5 inches long and uses a 1/2 inch wrench to turn it. It's what my mechanic gave me because I couldn't fit a full length EZ Out there. Part of the plennum and manifold are in hte way.

Anyway, that's what I'm going to try. Thanks for the advice guys, and it's good to see that some of your have your OP unit where I want to put mine. :cheers: