VSE Oil Pan & Pick-Up

[MalteseFalcon]

I've had a VSE aluminum oil pan and pick-up for quite a while now. Last week, I happened upon another one - this one was unused and had the hardware, the spring and plate kit to upgrade the oil pump to 60 PSI, and the pick-up. It was missing the baffle, but I can make one using mine as a template.



But here is an interesting thing: the pick-up is different than the one I have, or pictures of others I have seen, in that it has a steel box extending around the pick-up tube, screened off on the bottom with stainless steel mesh. It appears to have been a later modification to the original design.





The one that I already have and the ones I've seen online are different:





And the one in the catalog is the same as the earlier ones:



I'm curious as to why this was done; I suppose it would add another layer of screening before the oil hits the pick-up tube. It doesn't seem like something that would be changed without a reason.

 I'm trying to decide if I should fabricate a similar modification.

EDIT: I've heard that the vibrations from a modified engine can cause the pressed-in pick-up tube to back out of a GM oil pump. The baffle would keep that from happening here, but maybe the additional box and screen are to prevent any of the nuts holding the pick-up to the baffle from getting sucked into the pick-up tube if they vibrated loose?

[NOT A TA]

I tack weld the pick up tubes on oil pumps. That additional screen piece looks like perhaps someone made it and welded it in place on a production pump. Note the rounded corners on the original parts and the square corners on the "new" screen part. Also note on the side with the screen that the folded over edges to hold the screen don't line up as right angles at the corners. A production piece would be more accurate.

[MalteseFalcon]

I tack weld the pick up tubes on oil pumps. That additional screen piece looks like perhaps someone made it and welded it in place on a production pump. Note the rounded corners on the original parts and the square corners on the "new" screen part. Also note on the side with the screen that the folded over edges to hold the screen don't line up as right angles at the corners. A production piece would be more accurate.

John, I agree, it's more crude than the piece that it's attached to, and it's made of galvanized sheet metal rather than 16 gauge mild steel like the other parts - but it was in a sealed plastic bag like the rest of the components in the kit, which makes me think that it's possible that it's a VSE refinement as opposed to a one-off.

[MalteseFalcon]

I've been thinking about this some more, and I wonder - the guy I bought the pan from said he didn't recall that there were any other parts, and there never was a baffle. The baffle is the only part of the original design that had a screen on it for larger particles, so maybe this was intended to REPLACE the baffle by putting a screen on the pickup. When I was talking to Butler about their oil pumps, I described the earlier system, and they said that they would never recommend using a pick-up without a screen.

Other than providing a screen for the oil, the baffle does seem to perform another function - it  would prevent oil that has returned to the sump from sloshing up the sides of the sump.  So I guess I'm still not sure what the intention would be in this apparent modification.