Transmission pan eaten by road salt!

[cathead]

The Jeep Laredo started leaking oil from the automatic transmission pan so had to take action.
The easy way to remove the pan without a big mess is to stab the leaking spot with an ice pick
to drain the oil from the transmission. After the oil was drained, it was an easy job to remove
the bolts holding the pan. The pan was pretty crusty and required a lot of cleaning as it was
coated with road salt and sand, an ugly mess. Here in Minnesota the powers that be seem to
think that salt and sanding everywhere is a necessity for which completely disagree. I much prefer
to drive on a snowy salt free road myself. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen very often though.

The repair was pretty easy and I found a few weak spots with the ice pick and did a bit of brazing
using some boric acid flux and brass rods and using a slightly carburizing flame. Inside the
transmission is an oil filter so I ordered a new filter on line. The outside of the transmission
case will get a coat of Rustoleum Rust Reforming paint and also a top coat of regular paint.



Here's a couple photos of the repair work, the first photo of the outside of the pan and the second photo of the
inside.

The Laredo is full time 4 wheel drive so worth getting it roadworthy again. It's my spare car I keep just for an
emergency. The prediction for the coming months are for heavy amounts of snow so it is added insurance
that I can get around.

 

[graham-xrf]

Long ago, an expert told my Dad that brazing is only OK on cars if you can pretty much guarantee that the join to the non-ferrous metal would be reliably remain covered over with paint, and never see air/moisture. He would find car paint lifting up, and rusting at the braze repair, and would sometimes cut away the braze, and patch to weld real steel. He said the corrosion raiser was related to voltage difference between dissimilar metals. That did not stop my Dad. His repairs seemed fine, though he did say it was probably because the underside was pretty much loaded up with an oil-soaked dirt/dust mix. He used to spray the used engine oil onto the leaf springs, and then just about anywhere else he thought could use what he called "a lick and a promise"!

Congrats on getting the holes fixed up like that. Now all it needs is a swab of rust converter, and a coat of stone-chip paint.

 

[RJSakowski]

I had a road salt pin hole in a minivan oil pan. I just ordered a new pan from Rock Auto. For less than thirty dollars, I figured that I had another five to ten years of driving. A good protective coatung would certainly help. My experience with powder coating is once the coating is breached, corrosion gets behind the coating and the coating peels off. Maybe a two part epoxy or a polyurethane coating would fare better.

Since I retired seven years ago, I try to schedule my winter trips into town after the roads have had a chance to dry up. Not always possible but hopefully it helps. I also try to wash down the undercarriage after a trip down slushy roads. Again, not always possible but hopefully it helps.

This year with Covid running rampant, I drive hardly at all and my car sits in my dry barn, protected from rain and snow. My last trip was a month ago. I am hoping that will have a positive impact on the corrosion.

 

[b4autodark]

A Minnesota resident here that's dealt with this also. Might I suggest bead blasting the outside, coating with rusty metal primer, then a couple coats of aerosol can bedliner available at Home Depot or many other outlets. It works for me.

 

[G-ManBart]

That certainly saved it from the scrap pile! I would make one polite suggestion...forget the rust reformer type spray paints and go with POR-15. The stuff is absolutely amazing. It goes on like water and when cured reminds me of a porcelain finish...very hard, very durable and resists almost any chemical you can think of. They say it doesn't like UV and will fade, but that wouldn't be a problem underneath a car. The only downside is you don't want to breathe the vapors when applying it....good ventilation and an N95 mask are good enough. Oh, the other downside is if you get it on your hands and don't get it off immediately you have to wait for it to wear off...and if it gets on clothes it's not coming out.

About 7 years ago I bought a used, single-axle dump truck to move fill on our property....had thousands of yards brought in. It was in pretty good shape, but had a windshield leak that led to a rust hole through the floorboards right where your foot would rest behind the accelerator pedal. The insulation under the floor mats would get soaked and stay that way for months I guess....bought it from a seasonal landscaping place. I removed as much of the rust as possible (got it to solid, but still rusty metal), coated everything I could reach with POR-15, made a patch for the hole, coated that with POR-15 and then fixed the windshield leak. The floorboards and patch are still totally solid and haven't gotten a bit worse. My only thought was maybe to add a texture paint over the top like bedliner material so it wasn't as slippery....just never got around to it.

 

[ddillman]

Its so satisfying when you fix something without replacing the part.