F134 Oil Pan Gasket And Broken Bolt

Hello,

I recently tried to replace my rear main seal and in the process broke off a bolt head for the oil pan. I am going to try to pull the oil pan again and drill out the broken bolt. I replaced the gasket with a cork gasket, but I wanted to check and see what you guys recommended. Is cork the best gasket for this? Should I add anything else to the gasket? The manual I have says to torque bolts to 12 to 15 lb-ft, does that seem correct? Finally, I imagine I may have warped the pan a bit when I over torqued the bolts. Any tips or tricks to getting the pan back in good shape?

Thanks!
Eric

 

RTV should be more than enough. And you're tightening a metal pan against the metal surface so it should self straighten. Get a really nice hardened drill bit in drill out that broken bolt. use a center punch and hit a piloting hole in the center before you start to drill. Then use an easy out

 

I hate RTV. I'd put a skim of permatex #2 on one side.

Or I'd do what the old timers did with cork… a skim of grease on each side will help the gasket conform and seal, same as the lube on an O-ring does.

A cork gasket does not benefit from over-tightening, and those small diameter fasteners are low torque anyway. 12 pounds torque is a lot less than you think.

Like Howard says, you can un-dimple the bolt holes from the inside, while the pan is off.

Welcome to the forum.

 

If you think you need to use permatex on the gasket then put it on the side that goes to the part that is removed for easier cleaning. Personally I use thin coat of grease and have for over a half century.

 

Thanks for all the tips! hopefully I will have sometime next week to get it fixed up.

 

Use a Felpro pan gasket. I use the old favorite Gaskacinch. By the way, on my F134 it seemed the two rearmost pan bolts needed to be about 1/8" shorter than the others. If I used the regular length bolts they would bottom and there would be a leak. Measure the depth of the holes. FSM says 12 to 15#

 

And good luck with the easy out. Never had much luck with them. If you can get a left handed drill bit sometimes that will turn it out.

 

What Greevesman says, I have a set of left hand drills, and almost every time they will spin out a broken bolt if it is not bottomed out. It is most important that you get it center punched dead center first, I take a real small center punch so I can see that I am in the center, make a dimple first, then use a larger one to make one that hold the drill bit in the center, works for me.
Good luck, hope this helps.