legacycentral bbs

So I made the mistake of being lazy and letting on of those quick oil change service places do my last oil change. Now that it's time for my next oil change I go to do it myself and it seems that the "technician" (heavy on the quotation marks ) really overtightend the drain plug. When I pulled the bolt the threads came with it.

I tried rethreading the plug but it wouldn't tighten it would just spin out once I put any sort of pressure on the wrench. I bought a new drain plug hoping that would fix the issue, it didn't. With the new plug I could only catch a couple of threads before it came to a dead halt.

At this point I got my hands on an M20x1.5 tap and chased the threads clean, but now with the new drain plug it does the same spin out when I try to put on the 33 ft-lbs of torque.

I'm searching for an oversized M20 self tapper but with no luck, it seems they just don't make them in that size.

Does anyone know of a place that would sell that size of self tapping drain plug? I feel like my only other option would be to drill the pan to an M22 and tap that hole. Not even sure if that would work. Anyone have any suggestions on how to handle this?

Sounds like a used oil pan is on the agenda

Pntaste4evr99 wrote:Sounds like a used oil pan is on the agenda

Oh that hurts my heart. I'm gonna give the M22 tap a shot before I get to that.

After consulting a buddy and some drilling charts. I can pass the tap without having to drill out the hole since the jack ass that over tightened the bolt already did that for me pretty much.


On an somewhat unrelated note, we have the same number of posts

good time to upgrade to sti oil pan and pickup!

Swapping the pan would be faster and possibly cheaper, and can be done without pulling the engine.

does the sti pan have better baffling or something?

rallyak wrote:Swapping the pan would be faster and possibly cheaper, and can be done without pulling the engine.

I would also recommend this. I would be too worried about any metal shavings getting inside the oil pan and not being able to clean them out.

ride_child wrote:does the sti pan have better baffling or something?

The STi oil pick up has been known for issues and is why killer bee makes their pick up.

http://www.killerbmotorsport.net/oiling ... -ej25.html

The newer oil pans, the one I used on my ej22t does have some more baffling. The Sti pan may be better, but I can't see it making any difference at all on a street car.

The main advantage of the STi oil pan IMO is if you want to run newer style headers and twin scroll turbo setup.

The sti oil pans have less points of attachment for the baffles and pan, which allows oil to get back in the pan more effectively than the older pans. They also cradle the pickup so you're less likely to suck up air if you're doing hard cornering or are running a little low on oil. The 06+ pans are redesigned to have more capacity, and also keep less oil in the pan when drained. The 04/05 pan actually kept about 3/4th of a quart in the pan, and had a baffle around the drain hole that kept you from being able to pump out the leftover oil.

The sti pickup seems to only have cracking problems on the ej25, the ej207 and ej20x/y use the same pickup tube and don't seem to have the issue. My opinion on the matter is that the increased vibration from the longer stroke of the ej25 is what causes the pickup tube failures.