Quote:
Originally Posted by onebluemcm
I was hoping you'd comment.
You state my concerns exactly - leaky pan in the future, a lot of thing have to be disconnected, yikes.
I asked him directly if the threads had been cross threaded. I wish I could have seen them for myself, but he had the oil back in it already. Probably not used to my type of customer, wanting to see things first hand. He said they were not cross threaded, just felt tight as you state. What was odd to him anyway, was that once the plug appeared to be in all the way, it didn't seat like he would expect it to, as if it might just keep on turining. Sounds like what you mention about warped threads.
Any chance this is going to hold up over the years without needing a repair? Even if I'm doing them, it's a touchy thing with an aluminum pan trying to get it just tight enough with out going too far on damaged threads.
Repairs for not doing the whole pan....thoughts? On the E46 M3 forums, I came across a few ideas. On guy tapped it with a SAE 1/2-20 thread and went to a 1/2-20 plug no problems so far but this was recent. I do not think he drilled it, said the 1/2 = 12.7 mm, so he just cut new threads.
Another thing that came up is Time Sert ( http://www.timesert.com ), similar but entirely different that a helicoil, which I know would be bad for this problem. The timesert seems like it could be done without too much problem. Any thoughts on this? |
Lucky for you tapping the oil pan drain is very easy on this oil pan. That's because the oil pump pickup has a removable (easy from the bottom) screen that provides you enough access to stick your whole hand with a towel up into the oil pan to clear any shavings. So if in the future you do need to retap it it can be done without removing the pan.
I'd love to tell you if it was going to hold up, but can't without seeing/feeling it.