A word on ally sheet sump baffles particularly if you've had one in the car
for any length of time - it might be worth dropping the sump on occasions
and checking to make sure its still in one piece!
I took the sump off mine at the weekend and found this below.
That's a Stuart Taylor blade baffle but its visually identical to various
other ones like the Westfield one etc. It seems the vibrations from the
engine have over time caused the ally to fatigue crack quite alarmingly in
various places, to the extent that it wouldnt be long before a segment broke
off altogether - not something you want sitting across your oil pickup!
Don't worry, Ive reduced the price for Pat now that he's going to need a new baffle!



Blade Baffle fatigue cracked
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Chris

That's unexpected - I'm surprised there's enough force on it to cause problems.
I made mine of steel which will resist fatigue better than Al, but I can only imagine large forces resulting from vacuum if it's a very tight fit everywhere (which mine isn't - it will only stop 'sloshing'.
Anyone else seen anything like this?
Bob

Im sure its caused by engine vibration rather than any forces actually on it, i guess the best way to avoid it would be to have a couple of locating pegs welded into the base of the sump which you could drill/tap and then screw the baffle to, keeping the middle section more supported?

I would guess that its a combination of heating/cooling cycles and high frequency vibes.
How many miles do you think you covered Chris?

Al.

Ive used that baffle right from when I first built the car so probably best part of 10k miles with a fair proportion of that on track.

the semi-circular crack is very intriguing, does it correlate to any engine component ? It seems to be a very odd shape for a 'normal' crack

Not that I can think of no, the only parts of the sump that might touch it (apart from the sides obviously!) are the baffles around the pickup but even those arent high enough I dont think.
I think it could just be a case of the wrong grade of ali being used, and/or its hardened over time and now cant handle the vibrations.