How To Remove Rounded Oil Drain Plug
Regular oil changes are essential to extending the life of any engine. Luckily, changing a vehicle's oil is typically a straightforward affair that mostly takes no longer than 30-minutes to consummate.
Looking for a practiced online repair transmission?
Click Here for the 5 best options.
With a picayune fleck of know-how and a few bones hand tools, almost motorists tin can modify their own oil without even the slightest of issues.
On occasion, however, an oil change can present unforeseen difficulties. Possibly the most significant of these difficulties are those that ascend from a stripped (or rounded) drain plug. Since drain plug removal is essential to the completion of whatever oil change, such issues can bring fifty-fifty the best of efforts to a halt.
Furthermore, a stripped drain plug tin can pb to oil loss, if the plug is unable to be properly tightened. This leaking oil tin often be seen on the underside of an engine's oil pan. In such cases, a proper repair will exist necessary to forbid extensive oil loss and eventual engine damage.
Read on to learn more about how to remove a stripped drain plug, should you find yourself faced with such problems in the futurity.
See Also: How to Remove a Stuck Oil Filter
Table of Contents
How Does an Oil Drain Plug Get Stripped?
The term "stripped" oil drain plug (or oil pan plug) is typically used to draw one of ii conditions. These issues differ from one another in context, as well every bit possible ways of repair.
The start of these weather involves damage to the threads of an oil pan's drain hole. This damage prevents a drain plug (or oil pan bolt) from existence properly torqued.
This condition often results in continual oil leakage and should exist repaired at the starting time bachelor opportunity. A failure to right such problems can result in engine damage, at the easily of excessive oil loss.
Stripping of a drain plug or oil pan's threads generally comes equally the event of prior over-tightening. All drain plugs conduct a specific torque, to which they should be tightened during reinstallation. If this torque value is ignored, and over-tightening occurs, damage to the threads of a bleed plug or oil bleed pan can come as a result.
The second condition frequently described as a "stripped drain plug" actually refers to the rounding-off of a drain plug'southward hexagonal head. This prevents a wrench or socket from being properly applied to a drain plug during removal.
As a consequence, one is unable to drain the erstwhile oil from an engine's crankcase. Ultimately, this effect must be corrected before an oil alter can exist completed.
The nigh common cause of a rounded-off drain plug is the use of an improperly sized wrench or socket during prior removal/installation. This oft occurs when a standard socket is used in a metric awarding or vice versa.
Once a bleed plug's head begins to round off, further rounding over the form of successive oil changes is imminent.
How to Remove a Stripped (or Rounded) Oil Drain Plug
As previously mentioned, the term "stripped drain plug" is often used to describe 2 different weather. The procedure for remedying each of these 2 issues too differs. However, with patience and a steady hand, one tin take command of either scenario.
Drain Plug With Stripped Threads
A drain plug with stripped threads tin can ofttimes be removed simply by rotating it in a counterclockwise fashion, with a wrench or socket. However, information technology might be necessary to provide a slight corporeality of outward force on the plug itself, in society to become any remaining threads to engage.
This can typically be accomplished with the use of a flathead screwdriver, wedged betwixt the external surface of the oil pan, and the underside of the drain plug'south caput.
If the head of the stripped bleed plug is flush against the torso of your engine'southward oil pan, aqueduct-lock pliers can be used to rotate the plug counterclockwise, while pulling outward. In most instances, this method will show sufficient for removal, even under less than platonic circumstances.
Drain Plug With a Rounded Off Head
The removal of a bleed plug with a rounded caput, calls for a different strategy altogether. Removing a bleed plug in this state typically requires the use of a specialty socket called a bolt extractor, which features spiraled internal grooves. Irwin Tools makes one of the better sets and it doesn't cost a fortune.
A socket of this nature can be tamped lightly onto the head of such a drain plug, with the use of a dead blow hammer. Doing and then causes the socket's internal groves to bite into the caput of a rounded-off bolt, thereby simplifying the procedure of extraction.
How to Repair a Stripped Oil Pan Drain Hole
In sure instances, an oil pan'south drain hole can become stripped, making it impossible to torque your engine'south drain plug as desired. This can exist quite troubling, leaving many motorists to fret over what seems similar an irreconcilable issue.
Luckily, such issues tin oftentimes be remedied with the utilize of a quality oil bleed plug repair kit, such as those manufactured by Lisle or Supercrazy Tools.
Oil drain plug repair kits focus on removing whatever remaining damaged threads inside an oil pan'southward bleed hole, before rethreading this drain pigsty to have a slightly oversized plug.
When done correctly, this procedure allows a new drain plug to be installed in the same manner as the vehicle's OE plug. This eliminates the need to purchase and install a replacement oil pan, thereby saving a substantial amount of time and money.
How to Use an Oil Bleed Plug Repair Kit
The general steps for using an oil drain plug repair kit are as follows.
#1 – Remove Damaged Threads
Many oil drain plug repair kits feature a reaming bit, which removes the remains of whatever pre-existing threads. This provides a renewed surface, which can be tapped to accept a new drain plug.
#2 – Tap New Threads
A especially sized tap will then be carefully threaded into the oil pan's bleed pigsty. Doing and so cuts new threads, to which an oversized drain plug will grab. In about cases, a tap of this nature volition exist rotated several turns in a clockwise style, earlier beingness rotated ane-2 turns in the opposite management.
This process will be repeated until the tap has passed through the total depth of the oil pan'south bleed hole.
#3 – Inspect Threads
Later on a new set of threads take been tapped into your oil pan'south drain hole, 1 should finish to advisedly inspect their handy piece of work. Make sure that all threads are cut evenly, and are free of excess metal shavings.
#four – Flush Out Oil Pan
Later on re-tapping your oil pan's drain hole, it is always a good thought to flush a ½ quart of oil through your vehicle's engine, prior to installing a new drain plug. This will eliminate the vast majority of metal shavings that would otherwise circulate throughout your engine's oil.
#5 – Install Oversized Drain Plug
You will now thread a new drain plug into your oil pan's newly rethreaded drain hole. Care should be taken when tightening this plug for the outset time, in club to identify any abnormalities.
The drain plug itself should be torqued to the value specified by your repair kit's instructions. Later on torquing the bleed plug, check to ensure that its sealing washer is seated evenly effectually the drain pigsty'southward outer perimeter.
#6 – Refill Oil And Check For Leaks
Verify the integrity of your repair, by checking for leaks later on refilling your engine'south crankcase to chapters with fresh oil. If no leaks become evident, start your engine, and once again bank check for leaks.
This inspection should be repeated once more than, after driving your vehicle for a short altitude. If your oil pan and drain plug however appear dry following the decision of a short test drive, there will be little reason to anticipate farther issues of any blazon.
Preventing Stripped Bleed Plug Threads
Though it is impossible to avoid the possibility of encountering drain plug damage inflicted by a vehicle's previous owner, several precautions tin can be taken to avoid causing such damage yourself. By post-obit these cardinal procedural points, the chance of striping a bleed plug is all merely eliminated.
The first of these precautions involves using a properly sized wrench or socket during every oil change. Doing so significantly reduces the chance of rounding off a drain plug's hexagonal head. Data regarding bleed plug size for a particular vehicle can often be found via the Cyberspace, or by consulting a manufacturer-specific service manual.
One should also adhere to the advisable torque specifications when tightening their vehicle's drain plug. Doing so greatly reduces the chance of dissentious the threads of your engine's bleed plug or oil pan.
A torque wrench can be used to forestall over-torquing, while likewise ensuring that the drain plug in question is not left loose, to whatsoever degree.
Source: https://spirecar.com/troubleshooting/stripped-oil-drain-plug-how-to-get-it-out-and-repair-the-oil-pan-hole/
0 Response to "How To Remove Rounded Oil Drain Plug"
Post a Comment