The International Cessna^® 170 Association

After about three weeks and another unanswered phone call last week, I got the word from DIVCO.
They say the crack is three inches and goes to the forward drain plug which might have been the reason for the slow leak.

They can't fix it.
Still need a oil sump now, not sure if I want to send mine across the street to Drake to have it looked at.
Another four week delay, OSH in danger unless I can find a used one...

This is in Barnstormers. Might be worth a try


O200 C85 A65 C90 O300 C145 C75 • OPPORTUNITY KNOCKING!! DON'T MISS OUT • Parting several engines. Yellow tagged & As Removed Parts In Stock ! ! • Contact Tom Romanchik located Nesq, PA USA • Telephone: 570-956-2385 • Posted June 25, 2013 •

Bootlegger that I am (Or was), I believe that if I had this oil sump problem and it was grounding my airplane, I would make an effort to clean the leaking surface to the best of my ability and try some sort of an epoxy using a product recommendation from a knowledgeable purveyor of the same. After putting the engine back together, who's to know?
Just keep a close eye on the job and see what transpires. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
What the hell, how many times have you heard of someone bouncing one of the C-145/O-300 engines for having high compression pistons?

FYI. guys I talked with the feds about teflon coating the oil pans and they want me to talk to a propulsion DER about the process. Talked with coating co who talked with his supplier. They are doing this on race car engines for various reasons and have been doing this awhile without any problems of the teflon flaking/peeling. Process looks like it would work --only prob is the feds!. Anyone know a good guy DER that would be willing to work with us????? Teflon would bake on at 600 degrees -way more than you would ever see on your engine usless is was on fire!!! At that time you would not be worried about the oil pan! Ron

Is there a reason the pan has to be magnesium? (Other than the fed)
Could be be cast in aluminum or even 3D printed? (permission aside)
How much do serviceable pans cost? Or are they very very rare to find?

Well that was on question the feds asked-- how about casting a new one. Would be a lot easier to approve. I don't have any knowledge of casting etc. I know enough about coating that would be suffient to baffle the BS them (along with the suppliers). I am not sure if some were not made of aluminum?? Someone will correct me if I am wrong. Both have the approximate same melting point. To me it would be easier and cheaper to coat them vs casting a new one. Ron

Yes, the process would be simpler to coat an existing one but the approval might be easier to cast a new one and use the old one as a pattern.

It can't be that hard to get a local shop to cast one. If the feds are OK with aluminum as the material (or if one was ever made with aluminum) it could be an owner made part.

But if the coating can be approved, it's the better route (IMO) since other industries are using it as well.

I would think it would be very expensive to recast these oil pans given the very limited production run. But you are right, redoing them in aluminum would be the way to go.

If you know of a place/shop that can do this get a quote. Like I said I have no knowledge of how this would be done. Someone out there does and knows the process as well as the casting/mold procedure. The feds said that would be much easier to approve. To answer another question you asked-- yes there are hard to find and getting more rare all the time. Ron

If you want to talk about casting a new oil sump, seems to me the first thing would be to find someone to make the pattern. I'll bet that would be plenty expensive too, what with the built in intake manifold, etc. I think casting would be absolutely out of the question, economically, for the number of units you would need or be able to sell.

I forgot about the manifold in there.
Yeah, it's a complicated cast.

3D printing?

Even if you could find some one to cast a sump, you couldn't just use the old one as a pattern. There's on the order of about 6-7% shrinkage from molten aluminum to room temp.

That's pretty much a consensus that casting is not the way to go--and then Miles our assn. engr throws another problem out there. Now if we used the pan as a mold and then cast a new block and accessory cast and they all shrunk 6-7% we'd be in good shape --right Miles nothing else would fit So, coating is the way to go--Now a DER???? Know a helpful one anybody? Ron

Casting sounds expensive..while working for Wolf Creek, we had a small oil recirculating pump cast by a foundry out in eastern PA. I think it was somewhere in the neigborhood of 120K. It was just cast iron. ..and that was about 15 years ago.

Just weld it, there are hundreds of places that weld mag.

including me.