Stripped oil drain bolt, what are my options?

self tapping drain plug

 

.
...^^^... Man speaks with with truth & wisdom of 1000 Tibetian Monks.

 

I work at VIOC, when we strip pans we just re tap them, or put in a pan saver.

 

Who actually strips pans anymore? Normally it's just the plug these days. No way I would pull the pan for something like a stripped thread.

 

And this is why people hate you. if you fuck up some bodies car, you need to fix it properly. Not some bandaid, and never tell the customer.

 

and a Fumoto valve

 

idiots at the quick change places that over tighten them. My son took his Escape to one once and I had to get out the 2 cheater bar and 5/8" ratchet on the next change. I thought it was stripped for sure. That thing was torqued at least to 80 FTLBs

 

The reason they do that is because they are so afraid the person will leave it loose and they will have to eat an engine. A pan repair is much much cheaper than an engine. If I remember correctly from when I was a tech a Toyota, I believe the spec was 15lbs.

 

Torque spec for the engine oil drain plug on the 4.0 is 30 lb-ft and the 2.7L is 28 lb-ft. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/oil-pan-drain-plug-torque-spec.6754/

OP glad you got it fixed right with no leaks. Good on you. And thanks for the pics. Everyone makes mistakes as long as we are truly living life and learning, and taking risks... I'm hoping that my massive blunders will get smaller as I get older and (hopefully) wiser

 

Tap it and put a fumoto valve in there

 

All of you people saying to put a Fumotive valve in there....do you have skid plates? I was all set to order one, but when I crawled under and looked at the pan there is no way I'll put one on my truck. it would be sticking straight down a inch or so with no protection. the factory skid stop a foot or so before the pan.
On other vehicles I have owned the plugs is mounted in the side of the pan, not facing straight down.
For what a full coverage skid plate costs, I can deal with using a wrench. I don't offroad so need for the skid.

 

Nope

 

I've got the TRD skid because it looks good as I don't wheel heavy at all. The fumoto valve is protected by the cross member. One would have to do some serious damage to hit and dislodge the valve. If I was a rock crawler maybe I would advise against but otherwise they are great.

 

This is what I noticed also when I crawled under and looked at my 2015 when I put a fumoto on my list of things to buy. I guess some of these trucks are different depending on the yr. based on some of these comments.

 

No, I'm afraid your wrong. If I strip a pan I personally come up and apologize to the customer, show them the drain bolt and stripped threads, and then go down to re tap the pan. Using our specialty taps that not only clean out the striped threads but also cut them down to make the new threads. Put the new drain plug and gasket in and flush the pan out with a quart or two of oil. Pansavers are only used if the customer is in a hurry or the pan won't accept the new threads, that almost never happens to me because I know how to do it unlike others that I work with. Next time how about instead of assuming we don't do shit right, ask about our process.

 

What quick change was it? Our torque wrenches that we use bottom side don't even go up to 80 ft. Lbs.

 

You just told me that you do not do the job right. If I bring you a vehicle with a non stripped oil pan I expect that when I pay the "professional" that they don't fuck up my vehicle and do some tap job to "make it right". If you fixed it properly you would install a new non messed up oil pan in the vehicle, but you already said you don't. How is it that all the years of me doing oil changes as a untrained person I have never caused this damage, and I don't even have a torque wrench?

 

Lol at people saying tap the oil pan for bigger bolt. These pans are stamped sheet metal, not aluminum cast pans. There's no meat left to retap.

There's a thin, tapped sleeve that is welded on to the pan for the drain bolt. Once it's stripped, it's gone. Plug it with a rubber plug and deal with some oil seeping out, or just replace the whole pan.

 

There

Right here, you can see there is juuuuuust a tad bit of material to go to the very closest next size up.

 

Not to be a dick, but if you do it right you will never strip a drain plug.