Does a oil pan hole mean I threw a rod or could I be lucky and just replace the pan?

To get you by for a temporary fix, you can drill a hole in the pan and thread a bolt into it with a sealing washer drill and tap or if sheet metal just wind one in. It worked pretty good for me :)

Here is a drill and tap video

https://youtu.be/YDt5OUIZTs0

You should consider this a temporary repair that no professional would do, . . . however, . . . my Ma hit a piece of steel laying in the road with my '88 Grand Caravan and tore off the rear heater hoses and punched a 3" by 2" hole in the front of the gas tank up above the rear axle. I nursed it home 7 miles with no coolant and the little gas still in the tank. At one stop to let it cool down, I sanded around the hole, then built up the sealer until the hole was covered. Never smelled gas after that. Later I saw how vulnerable that patch was so I put a piece of thin sheet metal over it, then another coating of sealer to keep the sheet metal from rusting away. That was in 1990. The patch is still on there today and holding fine.

Also had a student chasing engine oil leaks a few years ago. Each time he fixed one, the spot on the ground got bigger. Turned out the main cause was a tiny hole rusted through a high spot on the oil pan. Being convinced at the time the van wouldn't last much longer, I just sanded the rust and plugged the hole with that gray sealer, hoping it would last a little while. That was about 6 years ago and that patch is also still holding too.

Remember, no professional mechanic is going to repair your car this way, but if it allows you to drive the car temporarily, that will give you some time to find a replacement oil pan.

The only way possible would be brasing the pan. Use a brasing rod and a torch to seal it. Take the oil out first.

I believe we have an aluminum pan here. Brazing will not be an option.

I'd rather fix an oil leak than a blown motor.

Any damage to the bearings or cylinder walls is already done and chemicals won't fix that. You would be surprised at how resilient some engines can be when they're run low on oil. That doesn't mean empty. Be aware that if your engine holds six quarts, nothing will show on the dipstick when you still have perhaps two to four quarts in the engine. A hole in the pan takes a lot longer to allow oil to run out compared to it being pumped out through a leak in the pressurized system. Even when you completely drain the oil, there is still one or two quarts in the passages. One common older V-8 engine took five quarts for an oil change but it took seven quarts to fill a newly rebuilt one with empty passages.

If you're hearing sounds louder than normal coming from in front of the engine, you may have bearing wear already. That will get worse real soon. If you hit something, perhaps it also hit the exhaust system and knocked a connection loose. You'll hear that inside the car and outside underneath. You might consider an inspection or at least have a mechanic listen to the noise to get an opinion of what's causing it.

That is exactly what you need to do now.

Happy to hear the good news. Here's a few more comments on that patch. Where I used silicone gasket sealer on my gas tank there is no real pressure but I was afraid to fill the tank for a year. It was supposed to be temporary so the van could be driven until I found a used tank. Eventually I quit looking and since then I've been on numerous cross-country trips and regularly stuff in every last ounce of gas I can squeeze in when I fill up. When I do think to look at it, that patch is as hard as a rock and shows no signs of leaking.

Engines are a little different in that they can develop a little pressure in the crankcase. That hasn't been a problem on my oil pan because the pinhole I patched was so small. I expected another hole to rust through but that hasn't happened in over five years. When it does, I'm going to order a new pan or find a rust-free one from down south. A new one will double the value of my van, just like when I fill it with gas!

JB Weld is much stronger than the silicone sealer I used, so while I wouldn't patch a customer's car that way, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it either. I always taught my students the "what if" principle. "What if that patch lets go?" Who's reputation is on the line? A new cast oil pan could be porous and seep oil, (that's very rare), but other than that, there isn't much that can go wrong with a new one. Still, if any new part is defective, I'd rather have to explain that than why my cobble-job failed.

As Julie S, my very knowledgeable and entertaining Chrysler trainer used to say, "We not only sell you new parts; we sell them to you pre-broken".

At the very least, I would search for a good used oil pan to have on hand if or when the patch starts to leak. If it does, it's not going to fall off on the road. It will start with small spots on the ground where you park. I'm always checking under my van when I walk up to it, and so far it's always been the guy there ahead of me who left the puddle, ... So far.

I have patched headers and a loose cam bearings that I have fix with jb weld. No problem here. Id run some lucus engine oil treatment. Because something came lose in their if you dont take it apart to get it fixed. It can trash your engine.

Its just a oil treatment. That protects the bearing.