[Vic1947]

Pan was delivered to me last night via Northland Pony Express and surgery began today. Chip wanted ~2" removed from the sump parallel to the bottom plane. So first thing was to mark an OH $#!% line around the perimeter as a guide. I then set it up in the mill and leveled the bottom using 1-2-3 blocks and some shims. I rigged up a Controx slitting saw in an arbor, set the height I needed, held my breath and punched the button. My little mill is too small to make a full perimeter cut without moving the part. So I cut about 2/3 of the front and back of the sump and all of one side. Then turned it around and set it up again on the blocks facing the opposite direction. Sliced the rest of it and voila! ...two chunks. Piece of cake.

I had a half dozen pieces of 1/4" billet aluminum plate in the scrap bin, so I dug one out, set it on the pan and marked a line around the edge of the sump. Used that line to rough in the shape of the plate with the bandsaw. Chip and I originally talked about taking out a section and welding the bottom of the sump back on, but due to the shapes involved, that's not practical. It would also be very hard to get the 2" of clearance we need. So a flat plate is the best approach IMO. After getting the approximate shape, it was back to the mill where I trimmed the edges to allow about an .080" step for welding. I'll weld both the outside and inside for strength and leak prevention.

Tomorrow I'll notch the plate and the side of the sump for the drain plug I sawed out of the leftover bottom piece. Chip sent me a link to a Digital Corvette site where a friend of a forum member named nitrovette had done this and it looked great. I'm all about shamelessly plagiarizing good ideas. Stay tuned!