Oil Pan - will it leak??

[rstl99]

Argghhhh....

Ok, so it was time to replace the leaking oil pan on my 3B (someone had previously tried to fix the leak with epoxy to no avail). Obtained a very good used oil pan from exmodlad (thanks!), cleaned it all up, POR15'd the exterior. Removed the old pan, kept the bolts and brushed them off. Cleaned the mating surfaces perfectly, applied the proper Toyota black sealant, then hurried to put it on and apply the bolts before the sealant hardened (I gather there's a 15 minute window).

So here I am, crawled under the truck, arms greasy to the biceps, trying my best to put in and snug up all the bolts in sequence (starting from the center and working my way out). Hands slippery on the ratchet handle, eyes filling with dirt, arms getting tired. All of the bolts were going in nicely and tightening up nicely too (very snug). All of a sudden, SNAP :whoops:, one of the bolt heads breaks off as I was reaching the tightened setting of the others. Damn! Keep going, then sure enough another one snaps off at the opposite end of the pan. So now I've got 2 broken bolts, with everything else well snug, sealant oozing out nicely on the side.

So the question is (dare I ask with trepidation...): will the pan have a likelihood of sealing with those 2 broken bolts (ie. will the bolts on either side provide enough clamping force to allow the sealant to fill the gap?? OR: will I need to consider taking the whole thing off, drilling out the broken bolts, buy new bolts (in retrospect, what I SHOULD have done in the first place!), clean the pan and sealing surface on the engine, and go at it again...?

I attach pictures of the 2 broken bolts, which are at opposite corners of the pan. Thanks for the advice...

p.s. a passing thought: would applying JBweld on each hole of the broken bolt head be a solution to prevent having to do this all over, and prevent a possible leak there? (one of the broken bolts would be a bear to drill out, given other things in the way underneath)...

 

[exmodlad]

well Rob...that does suck..why not try it...if you put lots of sealer on it..it may be allright..worst case is you will have to take it off and drill out the nasty little buggers

let it sit for a couple days to give the sealer time to firm up well and giver a go..


Best Regards

Gord

 

[canucksafari]

Like Gord says, let it set-upo for a bit. Still once it has set-up, I would use an extractor and take it out. Was it a stud or a bolt which snapped? If it is a bolt it should come out easier than a stud that is rusted in there. Do it when the engine is nice an hot and it should extract easier. Just go slow and gently. If you brake a stud extractor your options are more expensive unless you have a mig welder. With a mig, you can slowly build up the broken stud until you have a good enough surface to weld a nut onto it. But then you are going to have to dop the pan as trhe heat from the welding will likely have cooked your sealant. BTW, the black gasket maker works fine as does the copper. When I replaced the pan in my wife's car i used the copper because i was too lazy to go to the store for the black. That is about the only place where the Tercel doesn't leak.

 

[roscoFJ73]

Last time I saw this happen was when a shop had used a rattle gun on the bolts previously.

 

[rstl99]

Thanks guys. I will let it sit for a couple of days before I put the oil back in and fire it up. They are both bolts that broke off, not studs (thankfully). Guess I don't know my own strength eh? I had no problem torquing down (probably twice as hard as needed, in retrospect) the first 16 bolts or so, it's when I got at the ends that the sealant started stiffening up and torquing down became a little harder to feel, hence snap-snap. Lessons learned here, for sure.

As suggested, I'll likely try to drill out the one broken bolt that's easier to get at with a drill (I hope...). The other one I couldn't do unless I got an angle drill or something to drill the center hole. I have extractors which should allow pulling out the broken bits (thankfully, I put some antiseize on the threads before sticking the bolts back in...).

Still, this is a pain that I would have prefered avoiding. All was going so well....

Main lesson learned: go easy on the torque when putting those oil pan bolts in, and get yourself some new bolts for the job!!!

 

[brownbear]

you sir can justify a torque wrench in your future. You must have farmers strength....LOL Sometimes people lose reality on how tight to make it. It happens to me too. But I get enough torque wrench time at work to re-set my elbow. Using a torque wrench and set the inch pounds at a standard number for that size of bolts is what you should do for any future jobs. Some things just don't need to be that tight.

 

[rstl99]

The silly thing is that I _do_ have a torque wrench! However, I figured I was safe using arm strength and the 3/8" socket handle to guide me to a reasonable amount of torque to snug things up. I must have got carried away on a couple of the bolts, and I also felt I was racing against time to snug things up before the sealant set. Only time I've used a torque wrench in recent years was when I was overhauling a VW engine and needed to pay close attention to torque settings. Otherwise, I generally go by feel and do all right. In this case, I forgot that oil pan bolts don't need to be THAT snug. <sigh>

 

[83bj60]

Actually, Robert, it would have probably been safer if you had used a standard sized wrench instead of the socket wrench with its one-size-fits-all handle. These bolts need very, very little torque...

As for leaking, I don't think you need to worry. You'll probably still have to muscle the pan off if you decide to redo the bearings. That stuff is really tough to take apart!

 

[brownbear]

The silly thing is that I _do_ have a torque wrench! However, I figured I was safe using arm strength and the 3/8" socket handle to guide me to a reasonable amount of torque to snug things up. I must have got carried away on a couple of the bolts, and I also felt I was racing against time to snug things up before the sealant set. Only time I've used a torque wrench in recent years was when I was overhauling a VW engine and needed to pay close attention to torque settings. Otherwise, I generally go by feel and do all right. In this case, I forgot that oil pan bolts don't need to be THAT snug. <sigh>

oh ya, 3/8s ratchet and arm strength put you in the 60 foot pound range.... way to high. I would have used a 1/4 drive ratchet and only hand strength.

You would have to look up the specs, but I doubt those little bolts take more that 10 foot pound.

 

[cruiser_guy]

The best way to do those small bolts is with a 1/4" ratchet and your fingers right up near the socket. VERY easy to over torque and break.

 

[brownbear]

here ya go. Not sure if it's accurate per say as it's just an internet page... but

Metric Bolt Specs

I think the bolts are M8... They would be the lower grade for tension application, no need for the higher sheer rated 10.9....to hold an oil pan on.

 

[rstl99]

Thanks guys. Indeed, I was likely way over-torquing those little suckers! Anyway, I applied a generous amount of sealant (not excessive however) so am fairly confident that good adherence was reached between both mating surfaces, even at the broken bolts (after all, they broke after the surfaces had been brought very close together so assuming the sealant was already starting to harden, it likely won't come apart and form a gap - the over-tightened adjacent bolts would be keeping the two surfaces close together anyway).
I'll still have a go at removing the broken bolts if I can get at them.
Thanks for the torque chart.
Lesson learned...

 

[crushers]

it will not leak. the sealent will do its job as long as you did not sqeeze it all out.

think of it this way, the sealent is ...well... the sealent that prevents the oil from leaving the pan,
the bolts are to hold the pan in place till the sealent dries.

tightening is go around the pan snugging the bolts to the pan till they just touch, the secont time around you are turning 1/4 turn. done.

you were putting WAY too much torque on the bolts.

i usualy use a cordless drill with a clutch set at 6 for the first round. the secodn round i increase to 9. done

 

[crushers]

oh, and you do NOT want that sealent to squeeze into the oil pan, sealent and oil passages do not play well together (picture Wayne and Dougal and you get the idea) so use 2 X 1/8" beads and i usually spread this with my finger till a nice reasonably think layer is there.

 

[83bj60]

sealent and oil passages do not play well together (picture Wayne and Dougal and you get the idea)

tightening is go around the pan snugging the bolts to the pan till they just touch, the secont time around you are turning 1/4 turn. done.

Perfect advice :thumbsup:

One more (I don't he needs it, but what the heck, the more the merrier): don't use an impact wrench ojn the screws into the aluminum at the tranny... Aluminum strips very easily...

 

[83bj60]

here ya go. Not sure if it's accurate per say as it's just an internet page... but

Metric Bolt Specs

I think the bolts are M8... They would be the lower grade for tension application, no need for the higher sheer rated 10.9....to hold an oil pan on.

Great resource, I'm saving that . The bolts are 6mm, at least on the 1HD-T. Torque in the book was 7 ft-lbs. That's very, very little! Imagine a weight of 7 pounds at the end of a 1 foot ratchet handle...

 

[rstl99]

Great resource, I'm saving that . The bolts are 6mm, at least on the 1HD-T. Torque in the book was 7 ft-lbs. That's very, very little! Imagine a weight of 7 pounds at the end of a 1 foot ratchet handle...

The service manual I consulted indicated 12 or 15 foot pounds, I'm pretty sure. Still a far cry from what I was applying, I now realize... I _did_ search the site for past postings on the subject, re: tips and tricks to replacing an oil pan, but did not find the kind of advice this thread has produced, which I'm sure will be useful for someone else down the road facing the same job, so thanks to all for your input!

About sealant oozing into the oil pan: I can see that at places some beads of sealant have been pushed on the outside of the gap by torquing down the bolts. I can infer from that that possibly some beads have formed on the inside. I assume the sealant is fairly stable and those beads would not tend to break off and fall into the oil?? And that even if that were the case, the strainer on the oil pump would prevent these from being pushed up into the oil passages??

 

[Tapage]

.

Wayne .. you kill me with comparision between Dougal and you .. hahahahaha !

Lastime that I did the oil pan job in Tencha .. broke a bolt .. ( yeah 3/8 rachet .. ) it's still broken after mmmmm 4 - 5 years .. ? no leak.

 

[crushers]

LOL!!
i figured that would make some of you laugh...

if in doubt, take it out so if you have ANY worries at all then drop the pan and redo the job. cheaper than an engine rebuild.
but
you might be fine...

 

[rstl99]

if in doubt, take it out so if you have ANY worries at all then drop the pan and redo the job. cheaper than an engine rebuild.
but you might be fine...

I'll ponder on that for a while. Not keen on taking it down but then again, something like this is bound to nag at me...