Cotter pin in oil pan

A few week's ago while Walt Dupont was assembling the pan on a 39 flathead, I had asked him about the cotter pin. Good thing he told me, I almost snipped the one on my engine, wondering "what the hell is that doing there" :D
 
Scott H said:
I like the Ebay search better, where you can specify a string of words or use an asterisk as a wildcard in part of a word, or even exclude certain words or phrases by using the (-) sign.

(old, vintage, antique) ford ...will give you any listing that has 'ford' and at least ONE of the other words.

(old, vintage, antique) ford -injectors...will eliminate any posts that have the word "injector" but still give you all the ford listings with at least ONE of the other words

In our example "cotter pin oil pan" would ONLY give us posts pertaining to all four words. But apparently our board doesn't work that way.
Click to expand...

The V-Bulletin Boards (used here and on The Hamb) have a poor search function when compared to engines like Ebay and Google et al. It comes down to who has pockets deep enough to pay some very bright people to write the logarithms needed to predictively search through billions of characters written as code.

Simple logarithms used here will not be able to pinpoint exactly what you are trying to find, and so will give you what it thinks is a reasonable search. My experience in searching here has been either one of luck (rare) or frustration. So many times we see someone starting a thread with "I've tried searching but..."

While I sometimes bemoan the poor soul starting his enquiry with 'I've tried...' I understand that the fastest and most reliable way to have a question answered is to ignore the search function and just ask the question. We keep repeating ourselves a lot, then again, none of us are getting any younger lol.

PS. I also have wondered about that little bent split pin, now I know something I didn't know before.
 
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I know I am really showing my ignorance here but please bear with me....why would you have an "auxillary oil drain hole" when the large "normal hole" seems to work just fine? Again, brand new flathead owner here so I hate to sound so ignorant. Prior to this the oldest motor I've worked on is a '74 (and it's a Chevy). Thanks all, really enjoying the new experiences and challenges of being a flathead owner!
 
35Coup, sorry for the confusion, I was putting you on! The rear main is known to leak, and to prevent (leaked) oil from contraminating the clutch, a drain hole was provided for the escape of that oil. As the hole could get plugged by road debris, the cotter key fit loosely in the hole to vibrate and rattle, thereby keeping the hole clear for drainage.

You'll find that we kid around a lot here, but that goes with the territory as we're just a bunch of kids at heart, after all! ;)
 
Hey guys. Digging up this old thread.

I had my '40 flathead rebuilt last year. Ran it for a short period (like less than 30 minutes) and then set it in. Put the body on and got it home to the garage where it sat all winter.

About a month ago I come out and see a huge pool of oil on my floor. Roll it out, and it's coming from the cotter pin. What does this mean? Does this mean rear main seal is gone on my rebuilt engine?
 
I just noticed I originally posted this thread 5 years ago!
It's been a great ride, met some really wonderful folks and have thoroughly enjoyed working on and learning about my old 36 Ford!

Notice the updated avatar pic compared to 5 yrs ago.
 
I'm surprised that no one has so far mentioned the other sort-of benefit of the cotter pin in the oil pan, namely to create a focal point for that dripping oil so that drops form on the ends of the pin and don't spread all over the bottom of the pan.
 
Possibly the cork gasket at the rear main cap that helps seal the oil pan gone bad.Pull the oil pan and replace the gaskets.
s-l1600.webp
 
Pretty cool to see this old post come to the top again. I recall working on my first early Ford V-8 at 14 or 15 years old and wondering why in hell would someone have put a cotter pin in an oil drain hole like that. It was also cool to see the names of some who originally posted on this thread like Bruce Lancaster, and what a wealth of knowledge he was.
 
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