Did a drain and fill today on the 96 Max with 153,000 miles. I bet it had not been done in 100,000 miles. Dark fluid, the magnets were pretty much covered with metal shavings.

Surprisingly, the screen was not very dirty. WHO at Nissan decided to hold it on with 10 bolts and a nut??? JEEEZ!!!

Anyway, when I was putting it all back together along with the $28 Nissan gasket, I torqued the last bolt too much and broke the head off.

And in case anyone is curious, the broken bolt was the front center one.

Sealed the hole with Ultra Black Permatex, and it seems to be doing ok (no leaks so far).

My question is (finally), if it does start to leak, has anyone ever removed the remaining part of the broken bolt without dropping the pan again? Seems that if you had to drill it out, the hole in the pan flange is big enough to allow you to do it with the pan in place.

Was it difficult to get it out? How did you do it?


Thanks

 

You could, but it would be a lot easier with the pan off.

Though IIRC that hole is open to the top, can you see the tip of the bolt in the top of the trans housing?

More than likely it'll be just fine, really. If you do have to drop the pan again, you'll just be changing out more of the dirty fluid, so it'd actually be a good thing.

 

True, no real objections to doing it again.

How to get the broken piece out? Do they make an Easyout that small?

 

drop the pan and drill out that old bolt.. get a new one from nissan or ace

 

Yes, IIRC they do. I've had good luck in the past taking out tiny bolts (that aren't completely seized up in there) with an extremely fine punch and a hammer, punching it around until there's enough showing for me to grab with some vice-grips.

 

I had a simliar problem with my fog lights, the screws head broke off, so I just bought and easyouts and I drilled It out. They have small easyouts and big ones, the size I used was as small as a tip of a papermate pen.

 

thats true what you can also us is an automatic center punch they are $10 at sears.. iv been using one at work a lot lately for 30 year old screws and bolts..

 

I broke the bolt off on my oil pan when removing that after running seafoam. I had the pan off, so I just re-tapped that hole, but if I had the pan on, I would have also just retapped the hole.

Granted, I have a lift. There are probably like 5 of us on this entire site with a personal lift to use to do their work on.