Nov 2021
Car needed an oil change soon and I was scheduled to go get Paul Claude to dyno tune the car, so I decided to do it before getting on the dyno. Problem was, I had been out of town and only had a day to do it after getting back and heading to the dyno. Decided to do it anyway because it's just and oil change, what can go wrong?
Well this went wrong:
The drain bolt never felt weird going in or out on previous oil changes, so not entirely sure what happened there. Regardless, oil pan was stripped, so I rescheduled the dyno stuff and ordered a timesert kit with the appropriate 9.2mm length insert.
Drilled out the stripped threads:
Used the tap (and guide) to tap some threads for the insert:
Then inserted the insert and used red loctite on it too. Unfortunately, the insert ended up slightly crooked even though I had tried to keep everything as straight as possible. I didn't trust that the resulting mating surface would seal, so had to do something about that.
Fortunately, I figured that drilling and tapping by hand into aluminum while laying on my back might result in this, so alongside the repair kit, I also ordered a timesert tool that effectively mills the surface flat. It goes on around the inserting tool and slowly grinds away material to make a flat surface.
Here's the inserting tool in, the other tool goes over this:
And the resulting surface after many passes:
The tool itself was pretty big, so I did run into some clearance issues with the cover next to the drain hole, but I just shaved it down slightly with a dremel. I think later oil pans have these two components spaced further apart, so this should only be an issue on early cars.
Final result:
No leaks!
Was feeling pretty good with the repair, so of course something had to come and ruin the fun. Was driving down the highway a couple days later and someone decided to merge in front of me and slam on their brakes. Braked hard and swerved right (into an empty lane) to avoid a head on collision, but unfortunately did manage to hit their rear bumper a little. The damage:
Managed to get most of it out with some buffing, but the paint did crack around the reflector hole. I filled in the cracks as best I could with Dr. ColorChip and it came out quite well:
Not perfect, but the bumper needs a respray anyway so whatever. Fender got pushed in slightly, but I managed to pull it back with just my fingers, not a big deal at all. The damn reflector that I spent forever painting did die though:
I truly hate painting stuff (or more accurately, I hate how bad I am at it), so I just bought a painted reflector set from IND this time.
Car needed an oil change soon and I was scheduled to go get Paul Claude to dyno tune the car, so I decided to do it before getting on the dyno. Problem was, I had been out of town and only had a day to do it after getting back and heading to the dyno. Decided to do it anyway because it's just and oil change, what can go wrong?
Well this went wrong:
The drain bolt never felt weird going in or out on previous oil changes, so not entirely sure what happened there. Regardless, oil pan was stripped, so I rescheduled the dyno stuff and ordered a timesert kit with the appropriate 9.2mm length insert.
Drilled out the stripped threads:
Used the tap (and guide) to tap some threads for the insert:
Then inserted the insert and used red loctite on it too. Unfortunately, the insert ended up slightly crooked even though I had tried to keep everything as straight as possible. I didn't trust that the resulting mating surface would seal, so had to do something about that.
Fortunately, I figured that drilling and tapping by hand into aluminum while laying on my back might result in this, so alongside the repair kit, I also ordered a timesert tool that effectively mills the surface flat. It goes on around the inserting tool and slowly grinds away material to make a flat surface.
Here's the inserting tool in, the other tool goes over this:
And the resulting surface after many passes:
The tool itself was pretty big, so I did run into some clearance issues with the cover next to the drain hole, but I just shaved it down slightly with a dremel. I think later oil pans have these two components spaced further apart, so this should only be an issue on early cars.
Final result:
No leaks!
Was feeling pretty good with the repair, so of course something had to come and ruin the fun. Was driving down the highway a couple days later and someone decided to merge in front of me and slam on their brakes. Braked hard and swerved right (into an empty lane) to avoid a head on collision, but unfortunately did manage to hit their rear bumper a little. The damage:
Managed to get most of it out with some buffing, but the paint did crack around the reflector hole. I filled in the cracks as best I could with Dr. ColorChip and it came out quite well:
Not perfect, but the bumper needs a respray anyway so whatever. Fender got pushed in slightly, but I managed to pull it back with just my fingers, not a big deal at all. The damn reflector that I spent forever painting did die though:
I truly hate painting stuff (or more accurately, I hate how bad I am at it), so I just bought a painted reflector set from IND this time.
). The anxiety of having the dust ruin my wheels/suspension components was just too high with the Hawk pads. Plus, I kinda hated how they felt until they were completely up to temp. Not confidence inspiring at all. Hopefully the new PFC pads address both these concerns.
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