I don't want to get in an Internet argument but I feel I should just post some justified defence. I don’t post on here anymore and won’t be again in the future.
I have sold over 300 of these baffles over the last five years and this is the only one that has ever had a problem.
You will be lucky if there is a litre of oil in the centre section of that baffle. Assuming that oil has a broadly similar specific gravity to water then that will weigh 1000grams. You will be lucky to get a cossie to generate 0.8g on the brakes so we can say 800grams. The panel that has come out has a surface area of 12"square and 800grams is 1.76lbs. So the panel in question will never have pressure on it greater than 0.14psi. As you can see the forces on that panel are tiny.
Three years ago, which is when I sold Rich the baffle, I had a batch fabricated by the same company that laser cuts them as they needed work and I was starting a self build so had no time. The welds on that particular baffle might not have been great but they were still up to the job.
If this baffle did actually fail it was down to Rich’s sump. The same one that caused oil starvation twice. It had been bolted into a sump where the floor was too high. It is designed to fit a millimetre off the floor profile of the stock sump which is why I keep the stock floor in my big wing sumps. As the floor was too high the baffle will have been put under great stress and the sides forced out. If it did fail this stress would have caused it.
When Rich contacted me I offered to replace his damaged parts like for like. I'm not made of money but if this was genuinely my fault I wanted to help. I had sourced a good second hand crank and rods I rang him to tell him this and he rejected it claiming that his last build had a brand new crank and that was all he would accept. I smelt a rat when I discovered this was contrary to what he himself had written on here where he said his crank was not re grindable as it had already been ground a couple of times. He also refused to let me examine the baffle, sump or even crank for some reason. Would you cough up any money without even seeing the failed parts?
It's standard practise to return a failed part to the manufacturer and I offered for my courier to pick them up and leave a receipt.
Let me ask you this, if you were on your fourth engine rebuild in a very short time and had run out of money might you start to get a bit desperate?
As for not answering calls or emails, I have answered all Riches emails and I’m sure he will remember it was me that asked him for his number and rang him. I have never not returned his calls. My last email to him stated that I had it confirmed that the crank that he had installed in his engine had been re ground and was not the brand new item he claimed and that in light of his dishonesty I would certainly not be parting with any funds until I had inspected the baffle (request previously denied). My address was included.
Please note Mods, this is not a “for sale” add but I'm sure you will delete it anyway.