Can this upper oil pan be fixed?

[12bit]

Was having a tough time removing my upper oil pan before I realized I missed a bolt. I gave it a little leverage, but didnt get too crazy. Realized my mistake, removed the bolt and the pan came right off.

Either way, the damage was done. Upon cleaning the pan, I found some small hairline cracks around the bolt hole. Is this salvageable?

 

[12bit]

circled the areas of interest on both the inside and outside of the pan

 

[MikePL]

Looks like aluminum so it can be saved in 10 minutes. Clean it with brake cleaner. Remove some surface from a carbide burr (no grinder). Thread a bolt in order to preserve the threads. Run some beads with a TIG welder from both sides. I've done similar repairs a few times. The aluminum must be freshly ground or scraped. Any contamination will make ugly welds.

 

[jpoole]

Looks like at least some of those are from when it was made and not new cracks that you introduced.

 

[12bit]

Cleaned up the area some more. What i thought were stress cracks appear to possibly be casting marks? Am I just being paranoid?

 

[jpoole]

They look like casting marks to me. It's hard for me to imagine how you'd flex the marked location enough to create cracks like those without other distortions or cracking nearby. I assume that you'd also have cracks around the gasket surfaces / pan edges because you'd have needed movement on that edge to allow enough flexing to create the marks you circled. You should also look on the opposite surface to those marks, ie the outside of the pan in that same location (or inside) as larger / more visible cracks will likely go all the way through to some extent on a relatively thin piece like that.

 

[12bit]

Yeah, I didn't really flex it much at all. I didn't hear the sound of anything cracking and really didn't use much force before I noticed the bolt was still in place.

The first 3 pics I posted are the area inside the pan and the 4th and 5th pics are the same area on the outside of the pan. The nearby hole is where I left the bolt in place.

 

[Funner]

Am I just being paranoid?

Yes, appears so.

 

[iwashmycar]

x2, send it!

 

[smorkington]

Probably just casting marks

 

[PIP]

This part is die casting aluminum. Those marks are perfectly normal.

 

[dallen341]

fill with liquid and check for leaks