oil pan dent
 

Ok so today I was jacking my car up to fix a tranny leak and as I was jacking the car up the jack slipped. I bent my center link up into the oil pan. The center link is shot and I have a nice dent under the front of my oil pan. Has any tried one of those stud welders to pull dents out of an oil pan with out pulling the oil pan off. My oil pan is galvanized steel. I tried using the stud welder but just cant get the studs to stick good. I cleaned any oil off the pan and even sanded of the some of the coating. I dont now why it wont work. There is still oil in the pan, so I dont know if that causing a problem with the stud gun. If I dont get the dent out It looks like I will have to pull the pan off and that is going to be a huge PITA. Any suggestions.
http://inlinethumb22.webshots.com/90...500x500Q85.jpg

galvanized won't take weld even when you sand it. you need to nuetralize the galv.
take a cloth/rag with vinegar on it and wipe the area you are try to weld real good. then wipe with dry cloth/rag.that will remove the galvanization and make it able to be welded.

thanks I will try that.

Thats good to know. Never new that trick.!

its a old timers trick.
my sicilian father-in-law showed me that trick about 10 years ago when i built a huge work bench and used galv steel top. i needed to weld the seams and couldn't, so he showed me that trick.

i just don't know if there is a certain vinegar (apple,wine,distilled etc...) to use. i think vinegar is vinegar

Really? I've never had a problem welding galvanized steel and I've never "neutralized" it.

Technically you really are not suppose to weld galvanized. There is a toxic gas that is realesed from the gavanized coating when welding it. That what that white film is that come off of it. I am going to try the vinegar trick next week.

i had that same accident before, ended up replacing the oil pan with a new one. sucked. i've never even thought about jacking up the car from there since, always from the sides now

Same here.

yeah thats what Im going to do from now on.

I had something similar happen to me over the summer only more towards the back of the pan is dented up. The wood I was using split between the k-member and the jack and the jack slipped.....never again.

Well I fixed it today. What a pain. It was really hard pulling the dent because the metal was so thick. Its not pretty but it works and no leaks. I guess I will have to replace the pan down the road.

did you used distilled vinegar? Technically the chemical properties of distilled vinegar is better to clean/strip what you need off the galvanized metal so that is what you should use. Thats the chemist in me talking though...

Yes I did. It worked somewhat. The studs stuck better but were not strong enough to pull the dent. So I had to put an extra tack on each stud to add a little more strenght to pull the dent.