Oil pan bolt mounts and helicoils

Guerillastyle · Aug 9, 2012

Hello everybody, long time lurker first time poster.
Recently I did my RMS, oil pump and oil pan gasket. While torque the oil pan back into place I mistakenly over torqued and few bolts.
The main question I have is regarding whether or not I need to drain the oil pan and drop the pan in order to tap some helicoils into place.

5-90 · Aug 10, 2012

Guerillastyle said:
Hello everybody, long time lurker first time poster.
Recently I did my RMS, oil pump and oil pan gasket. While torque the oil pan back into place I mistakenly over torqued and few bolts.
The main question I have is regarding whether or not I need to drain the oil pan and drop the pan in order to tap some helicoils into place.

Yah. The holes in the sheetmetal pan are clearance-drilled for 1/4" screws, but you're going to go rather larger than that to do a Heli-Coil. It's easier with the sump out of the way...

Guerillastyle · Aug 10, 2012

Alrighty than, atleast I know what the job entails. Thanks.

N8N_99xj · Aug 10, 2012

when you have the pan off check the rails with a straightedge too if you overtorqued enough to strip the holes in the block you might have dimpled the rails too, if you did just take a ball pein hammer and straighten 'em out again.

Guerillastyle · Aug 23, 2012

Thanks for the extra advice N8N_99xj. I will make sure to inspect the rails.

xcm · Aug 23, 2012

Have you considered just tapping to the next size step?

If you wanted to avoid pulling the pan, you could allways use a single flute countersink to clearance the oil pan away from the hole in the block. It will slightly chamfer the hole in the block, but i usually do that anyway, there should be enough meat for the threads anyway.

5-90 · Aug 24, 2012

xcm said:
Have you considered just tapping to the next size step?

If you wanted to avoid pulling the pan, you could allways use a single flute countersink to clearance the oil pan away from the hole in the block. It will slightly chamfer the hole in the block, but i usually do that anyway, there should be enough meat for the threads anyway.

The only problem with that is that you now have an odd-size screw that you need to keep track of - yes, there are already the four 5/16"-18 screws on the oil sump, but they're at the ends of the rails. Keeping track of one mid-rail can be a pain...

Guerillastyle · Aug 24, 2012

I honestly prefer the idea of not having to drop the pan again due to the fact of reseating the gasket being a PITA; went through 3 gaskets before I got it "right". I definitely want to tackle this problem before the winter comes, as working on the car would be even more of a nightmare.

Oil pan bolt mounts and helicoils

Guerillastyle

NAXJA Forum User

5-90

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Guerillastyle

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N8N_99xj

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Guerillastyle

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xcm

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5-90

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Guerillastyle

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