Stripped oil pan drain hole

I was talking more generally with that comment. :wink: But Iā€™m not 100% convinced OPā€™s pan is aluminum. From what Iā€™ve found, stamped steel was also used in '93 Tempo oil pans.

I will pick it up tomorrow, they have to order it. Defiantly will be coming here for car troubles from now on, you guys are helpful and fun.:smiley:

@shadowfax, about the pan its def aluminum nice shiny silver when it strips not a spot of rust on the pan lol. Plus i wasnt sure myself so i put a magnet to it, would not catch at all. Plus those threads that came out with the bolt, they were very bendable shiny silver.

ā€¦also, if the plug was steel, it might leave rust behind in the threads.

From the OP.

Tester

Plug was steel, personally i think putting a steel plug into soft aluminum is silly. Making pans out of aluminum is silly imo, but i get they wanted to save weight on the cars. Speaking of silly some of the new cars have plastic oil pans :frowning: I dont think thats a good idea either lol

Now that OP has clarified Iā€™m sure itā€™s aluminum, but how many OPs have we had who would not be able to tell the difference? Iā€™ve learned not to assume that a given fact is, in fact, a fact. :wink:

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The oil system is pressurized after the pump but the oil pan return is not.
Those bung plugs are used in boats costing orders of magnitude than a car with much more severe consequences if they fail. I have never had one fall out. In fact, after a bit of time, it can be a real chore to get it back out even after the compression is fully released. Forget about that toggle bolt version, just use the normal plug and I double dog dare you to pull it out once you tighten it in place. It not only squeezes the bore, it flares out above the pan. Youā€™re not pulling that out with a claw hammer let alone it just falling out. An example of overthinking and fear driving behavior :wink: Good luckā€¦

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Good to know. Thanks for the education.

Yeah anyone that takes their boat out in the middle of the lake without putting the plug in knows that it can be a catastrophic failure. Life jackets are required in Minnesota, but water is cold.

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Well I got the wing type plug where the long wing goes into the oil pan. It seems they cant order the rubber plug type anymore. Had to tighten it pretty tight but it was holding last i checked. Im still going to try to find that rubber one like they use in boats. Other people that have them said its never come out even on a speedboat. So for a backup im going to get a few if i can find them.

I had a rubber plug in my Jetta, put in by a service place without my knowledge. Broke off, but luckily just as I was pulling into a gas station. But still had to have it towed to a repair place to have it fixed.

I would not be confident in the boat plug ability to deal with the heat,

Canā€™t speak to the robustness of the rubberized plug, never tried that as a diyā€™er. I was thinking though if you really wanted a fix it sturdy like, but didnā€™t want to weld, what are the options? Iā€™m thinking you might could remove the pan and on the bench rivet a thick piece of aluminum already threaded with a hole in it that fits a drain plug, rivet that right over the existing hole, with a gasket in between. It seems like the welding method would be the best though, if you have to remove the drain pan anyway. Hereā€™s what Iā€™d do if I had that problem: Remove the pan, take it to the local automotive machine shop, ask them to fix it so it wonā€™t leak.

Really?

The Ford Tempo was a massive sales success for Ford. It was one of the top ten best selling cars in the US, usually in the top five, during its entire production. In 1984, Ford sold a total of 531,468 examples of the Tempo and Topaz

You mean to tell me, there is NO junk yard with a lonely Tempo sitting in it? They sold 2.7 MILLION of these babies! Even if 99% of them have been melted down, thatā€™s STILL 27,000 Tempos out thereā€¦

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It does seem unlikely thereā€™s no used oil pans available. Most junkyards/auto recyclers are connected all together in a big network and if they canā€™t find the pan locally they can find it at a junkyard maybe 1000-2000 miles away, and two the junkyards will have it delivered where itā€™s needed. As an alternative, surf over to the Pick and Pull website and click ā€œcheck inventoryā€.

It seems the OP is using a toggle bolt type drain plug, good enough for an old car like this one. Parts and labor to replace the oil pan may not be in the budget.

Toggle bolt drain plug

The last year the Tempo/Topaz models were offered was in 1994.

When was the last time you saw either of these vehicles driving down the road?

When thereā€™s no demand for parts for a vehicle, theyā€™re crushed and sent off to be melted down to make room for newer inventory.

Tester

It isnā€™t worth the time and effort for a salvage yard to locate and ship a $20 oil pan. If a full service yard has such an old car they wonā€™t sell the oil pan off a good engine, it would have to come off a failed engine making finding one more difficult. This is a self service salvage yard search project.

i did a quick search at car-part.com and there are dozens of pans by me at the local yards. yes, 4 cyl motor.

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I saw your link and did a search, found a few that had it, but they were dif years and i dont know the ID number. How do i get that number because the guy said they are different pans. Im 205 miles from the nearest city and 65 miles from the nearest town with a population over 5000. Only yards that have it my state are roughly 100 miles or more. They also mentioned a core charge? For used parts?

Where do i find the oil pan ID number they are asking for? Cause if its only on some non accessible place on the pan well thats not going to happen lol.