Broke bolt head off on transmission pan

Yep. Was going to remove my pan this weekend on my 08 AC V6 4x4. On about the 10th bolt or so, pop! Right in the corner. I immediately threaded the other ones back in, torqued then down and refilled the pan. My ASE certified buddy in my shop is taking her home with him this weekend while I'm gone back to gods country in Georgia for some leave. He's gonna drop the pan, without breaking any other bolt heads off, hope to goodness he's gonna be able to extract the broken bolt, replace the gasket and filter, then re-install the pan with 20 new bolts courtesy of the stealership, fill it up and seal it up. Then I'm never messing with the AT ever again. 120k and the fluid that came out looked fine and didn't smell burned or anything. Hardly any difference from the new ATF WS I had and I drive the shit out of my truck. So, there it is. I'm now a member of the don't mess with the ATF club.

 

How do you break a bolt during removal? Installing I could see...

 

Don't know. Just sheared right off with hardly any torque. The previous ones came out effortlessly

 

No real need in pulling the pan. I drain and refill once a year. Unless there is a reason to pull the pan it's a waste of my time IMO.

 

In my experience it's way more likely to shear coming out. Are there threads exposed on the bolt? If so it shouldn't be too big of a pain, unless is really seized.

 

Hard to tell until I get the pan off. Like I said, ended just back tracking.

 

Couldn't agree more! At least now I couldn't. Haha