Accept vintage car reality and get a drip pan
By Mike Austin
- Jul 06, 2020
I've recently come to fully understand something most of the Hemmings Nation already knows: if you own an old car, you need a drip pan. Possibly more than one. I'm not sure what took me so long but, as usual, I'm sharing my story to provide comfort and motivation to others on the same journey.
My conversion to drip pan acceptance came indirectly from Alfa Romeo ownership, but surprisingly, is not the current use case. My Spider used to leave a bellhousing-shaped stain of transmission fluid on the floor, sometimes soaked up by some scrap cardboard left under the car. After getting some momentum on my projects last winter, the Alfa is sealed up and dry for now (though the differential has thoughts about changing that status). Long-term self-shaming that I should have put a drip pan under the Alfa, or fixed it sooner, led to me to finally address the other slow drip on my garage floor, the one coming my daily-driver 2007 Saab 9-3 wagon.
The dull paint on the hood is actually an original clear bra, which I fear removing will create a farmer tan effect in contrast to the rest of the paint. Mechanically, this car is a beauty.
The Saab is in far better shape than the 246,000 miles on the odometer suggest. I bought it from the original owner with a stack of receipts (nearly all of it scheduled maintenance or wear items) over 10 years that nearly total up to the original price of the car. The dry engine bay is a point of pride. At first, the 9-3 only left a mark on the floor (and a minor one at that) after some combination of extreme cold and extended sitting. Once that became more consistent, I looked closer and assumed it was coming from the oil level sensor, which sits above the drain bolt. It's installed from the inside-out (why, I have no clue) and requires engine removal to replace, so that sensor will never get a new gasket. I cleaned up that general area, slathered some black RTV around the fitting, and called it a day.
The drip continued. At the next oil change I took a closer look and was fairly confident the problem was the drain plug, especially as the area above it was still dry from that last cleanup. Easy, plus I had a new drain plug O-ring just like the official service manual procedure specifies. The drip continued. I wondered why I didn't leave well enough alone the first time I replaced that O-ring. I reached under the car and gave the drain plug an extra quarter turn. The drip continued.
The drip pan, keeping my splotchy garage floor from getting splotchier and also showing that actually, fluid loss is minimal. Apparently it also catch A/C compressor condensation drips in the corner.
At this point, my mitigation process was to simply leave a pile of Oil Dri on the garage floor that I initially threw down to mop up the mess. I'd kick some dry stuff over the latest drip to later confirm that, yes, the Saab was still dripping, and generally try to ignore the problem. I checked the dipstick several times to make sure I didn't face future catastrophe and verified that the drip was barely detectable in terms of engine oil level.
Still, there was that drip. It either meant an unsightly spot on the floor or a pile of oily dirt waiting to be stepped in and tracked everywhere. My garage is far from pristine, but there's no point in making it worse. The real problem, though, was that I suspected I was losing miniscule amounts of oil but had no real way of knowing. Even a tiny amount of oil can spread over a pretty large surface area.
I could also use a pan for my oil catch pan, seen here dripping on some existing Oil Dry from an unrelated spill until I take it to be emptied.
Finally I bought a drip pan at the local chain store while on a supply run. I think it was $10. I put it under the Saab and confirmed that the drip was mostly cosmetic. The kind of thing that can wait for the next oil change (my next trick is a new plug pre-packed with an O-ring and a proper torque wrench-verified tightness). For now the mess is contained, I'm not continuing to soil my garage, and I'll know if the situation gets worse. The drip pan doesn't change my annoyance at the Saab's leak. The evidence is still there, staring me in the face every time I back out of the garage, but at least it's under control.
What kept me back, aside from laziness? I think it was the feeling that using a drip pan was acceptance of failure, that I was letting a problem linger instead of doing the right thing and eliminating it. The reality is that old cars leak, even modern old cars like my fleet. Gaskets dry out, bolts loosen, metals warp, and slippery modern oils seem to be more adept at finding ways to escape. You don't have to like it, but it doesn't change the fact that, at some point, if you have a vintage car it's going to leave something on the floor. You can choose whether or not to deal with it and when, but until then do yourself a favor. Get the drip pan.
SOURCE: HEMMINGS