57 Oil pan question

[Gerry P.]

I recently purchased what I thought to be a ’57 corvette oil pan (black oil pan pics below) to replace the later year service replacement pan (orange oil pan pic ) which is on my car. The black oil pan (which is supposed to be from a ’57 corvette fuelie engine) shows one “long stamped groove” and two “short stamped grooves”. The 56-57 judging manual indicated there should be one “long” and one “short” groove. My question is whether or not the oil pan is correct for a ’57.
My second question is whether judging points will be deducted for the pan currently on my car (orange pic) since it is not original. Or maybe I should rephrase my question, am I better off staying with this pan rather than the newly purchased pan if the new pan is not correct (because of the two grooves)?
Thanks
Gerry

[Lynn H.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

Gerry,
I think the orange one is passenger car oil pan, not sure about the black one, but it does not look to be correct from some pictures I have seen. You might try searching in the archives, I just did and quickly found a couple of old threads that you may find helpful. I didn't look through them all.
Lynn

[Mike M.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

black pan not 57 vet pan.see if you can return to seller.mike

[Gerry P.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

Thanks for the replies. I did go back and find some earlier posts which provided additional information (I had searched a few days ago and was unable to immediately ferret out any posts specifically on "oil pans" although I had remembered seeing some a few months ago). Based on replies and research, my suspicions have been confirmed that the black pan is not correct. In hindsight, the seller of the black pan had talked about having a full size '57 FI Chevy convertible and I'm guessing the oil pan belonged to it.
Gerry

[Wayne L.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

The black pan is what we normally see on a 56/57 passenger car engine, and it holds one quart less oil than the Corvette pan. The orange pan is more like what we normally see on original Corvettes. I would leave the orange pan on your car, but would swap drain plugs so that you have the large (7/8") plug.

[Edward M.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

The black pan is what we normally see on a 56/57 passenger car engine, and it holds one quart less oil than the Corvette pan. The orange pan is more like what we normally see on original Corvettes. I would leave the orange pan on your car, but would swap drain plugs so that you have the large (7/8") plug.

I concur. Black pan is passenger car pan. The orange pan is "close" to original looking. I would like to see a pic of the inside of the orange pan.
I also agree with replacing the drain plug. The drain plug from the black pan is more correct looking (from this angle).

[Gerry P.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

Ed - thanks for the reply. Here is the best picture I could find of the inside of the orange pan. It does have a trap door which is hard to distinguish in the picture. The pan is on the car so can't easily take another picture.

Both you and Loren suggest swapping the drain plugs. I assume they have the same size plug threads so will be easy to swap - correct?
Thanks
Gerry.



IMG]http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww232/gphil460/IMG_0536.jpg[/IMG]

[Mike M.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

notice that the orange pan has a pair of horizontal "ledges" running front to rear(which is what i believe to be correct for your vette). the black pan lacks these ledges. doubt the orange pan will take any hits originality wise.mike

[Edward M.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

If I am not mistaken, 56 and 57 Corvette pan did NOT have a trap door. The trap door occurred sometime after 57 and before 62 (58-62 perhaps) for the high horse Corvette engines. The low horse Corvette engines used a different pan that had a baffle, not a trap door (I think)

I am speculating that you have one of these later high horse oil pans.

I suspect that you could make a trade for the pan you need. They are worth about the same, as best I can tell.

[Mike M.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

ed: i believe you are correct. the orange pan is identical to the 62 360 hp pan i just today put on the 360 vette engine.the ledges are attached with spot welds that leave scars on the outside wall of the pan and as such, a sharp 57 judge may deduct for the scars. and i THINK the pan i used on our 57 250 hp did have a trap door but it didn't have the pair of ledges, hence no scars on side wall of the pan-----been a year or so since i built the 250 engine so i'm not sure about the trap door on a 57 . anyway, both are hard to come by.mike

[Joe L.]

Re: 57 Oil pan question

Ed - thanks for the reply. Here is the best picture I could find of the inside of the orange pan. It does have a trap door which is hard to distinguish in the picture. The pan is on the car so can't easily take another picture.

Both you and Loren suggest swapping the drain plugs. I assume they have the same size plug threads so will be easy to swap - correct?
Thanks
Gerry.



IMG]http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww232/gphil460/IMG_0536.jpg[/IMG]

Gerry-----


Until such time as GM switched to metric threads for oil pan drain plugs (1996 for Corvette small blocks), all Chevrolet drain plugs were 1/2-20 thread size.