Joined the "Stripped Oil Drain Plug" group today.

Friggin-frack! Changing the oil in the STeed and put the drain plug in. It went in nicely; not crossthreaded or anything. Didn't even get to where it felt snug, then I could feel the odd turning of the plug in the threads....

Backed it out and it had about 1-1/2 turns of aluminum on it!

Off to get a bigger one or a helicoil....

Briggin-friggin-fraggin!@&$%#!!!!

Hate that feeling. Happened on a little less critical item for me this year - Valve core. It at least would seat and hold air. Got it changed out and I use a little less umpf now. Will keep watching to see how this goes for you.

Kevin

Another reason to let your synthetic oil go 10,000 miles?


Actually really sorry to hear, Pat.

Mark

Pat bummer! Please do let us know how you fixed it...sadly there will be others.

Buggers! I know that feeling.

John

Do you know that you can get self tapping half size metric drain plugs? You just have to search for them.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000CO7DS6/ref=asc_df_B000CO7DS62269758?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=dealt644513-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=B000CO7DS6

The Dan said:

You just have to search for them.

Click to expand...

No we don't, we have you. Great find.

Thnaks.

Great find Dan,


They are even magnetic to catch the ...oh wait.. the block is Aluminum.

I guess you'd tap it with grease on the new bolt, then pull it out and clean it .

Great find. I wonder if I should order one now.. If I do I will never need it. If I dont I will need it soon.. lol

Man, that sucks! I too would like to hear your solution for when this happens to me!

At some oil changes, I've been a little worried of doing likewise. So when an almost-new oil pan was available on eBay, I bought it as a spare. You know ... jus' in case.

Wow Pat, you are the man. you got all of that colorful language past the moderators and did not get deleted.

if you don't have any luck, I have two new tubes of J B WELD you can use. just let me know and I'll run them up tomorrow morning

Better Luck tomorrow, I hope.

Paul:biker:

Thanks Dan! At that price it's worth buying just to have on hand.

Plug I removed was a 12x1.25 but its one of the ones with the smaller bolt that can be removed to drain the oil, so I'm guessing the PO must have installed it. I never paid much attention to it; thought it was original so maybe there was issue with it before. I've always taken the big plug out.

Bought a 14x1.50 plug to replace it. There appears to be plenty of material to tap, so thats what I plan on doing. I already have the tap and 1/2" bit (12.5mm) so thats not the issue. I will have to come up with a 1/2" drill to chuck up the drill bit!! I'm going to attempt to do this while the pan is still installed.

Wish me luck!

Excellent, Dan. I looked on Dorman's site...... they have other sizes as well.
http://www.dormanproducts.com/gsearch.aspx?type=keyword&q=oil+drain+plug+oversize

sirepair said:

Backed it out and it had about 1-1/2 turns of aluminum on it!

Click to expand...

Well, there's your problem. You violated one of the rules of proper torque procedure. "Tighten until it strips, then back off 1/2 turn". Not 1-1/2, silly!!

sirepair said:

I will have to come up with a 1/2" drill to chuck up the drill bit!!

Click to expand...

I have one, I will bring it right over. Now for the truth. Sounds like you have a good plan and the right drill for the thread you want to tap. For those less knowledgeable, with a metric thread you subtract the pitch from the thread size to get the correct tap drill size. Example - a 10 x 1 thread requires a 9mm drill ( 10 - 1 ). so the 14 x 1.5 is a 12.5mm drill.

Best of luck to you.

Kevin

Just heard a similar story on a friends brand new BMW 6 cyl bike ( lotta $ ).... Had a 600 mile service done at a dealer, then the next service at 2000+ miles ( different dealer )... At second dealer, the mech comes out 10 mins after he drops off the bike and take him in the back to show him the stripped threads. Second mech calls the first shop and they work out a credit, but that's really gotta get the big squeeze on the jewels... brand new bike and dealer messes up.

Anyway, they retapped and used a larger bolt.... just like this thread.

Anyone ever use these?

http://www.timesert.com/html/drainplug.html

I dunno Pat, how will you keep the drill bit and tap straight and true? I kinda like the oversized plug better. At least if it fails you can always turn to the drill/tap...