2001 Corvette, 29K miles, original owner...no accidents no undercarriage impacts of any kind. I share that only to eliminate comments abiut damaged oil pan structure. Problem is this...I seem to have a VERY slow drip which appears from drain plug. I changed the oil and filter yesterday and bought a new oil pan plug at the chevy dealer. Believing the old drain pig was defective. Well tonight I see a drop on the new plug, about to drip off. This is VERY slow and small amount but annoying. I don't like leaks!
Question is this....new plug had a black gasket molded to the bolt head, didn't seem to have much thickness. Should I be installing a gasket washer in addition to the plug?

 

Had a similar problem a number of years ago...purchased a magnetic plug with a built in nylon washer...not an OEM plug.

 

Doesn't take much compression of the rubber o-ring to seal. I would look closely for an issue with the pan prior to doing anything.

 

Hard to imagine it being oil pan issue. Car is virtually like new, I'm original owner, never abused in any way, senior guy. Just seems the stock plug has very little washer surface to contact the pan. I deliberately bought new plug from dealer before this oil change. So much for that,

 

WHAT torque value are you torqueing the plug to?

Is the sealing surface on the oil pan free of nicks, debris, defects???

You can use a straight edge on the seating surface to see if its flat and smooth.

Bill

 

Set torgue at 18 Ft/Lbs....have old torque wrench in kg/m. I convert to 2.4

Just talked with dealer service manager. Has owns 2010 vet himself. Said he too
had plug leak issues. Had to replace the pan!!!!!! OMG Not simple nor cheap
job. I have to say I'm rather pissed if thats the issue. Not jumping to conclusions,
we sometimes do that and make minor issues seem major. He did say it may be the
threading in the pan itself, not the plug. Said CAREFULLY put (1) wrap of teflon, 1 only,
around the plug. i'm waiting this out for awhile and see if this progresses.

 

I replaced my drain plug with a valve from zip corvettes, going for a torque once and forget it solution.

Kind of a gimmick approach, but the car is just for fun anyway, so I thought I would give it a try, not fully trusting another design solution on a task with a universally agreed upon best practice, a bolt in a hole.

I was pleased with the design so installed it, no problem. If I get hit hard enough to force the protecting crossmember into the valve, there is going to be a puddle in the street, the only drawback I can see.

 

Interesting...heck if you're hit hard enough to shove crossmember into it you've got bigger problems than a puddle in the street. But yes, agree, simple solution(bolt in a hole) ought'a work for god sake. If they can't make that work where are we??????

 

I might also have replaced the pan if I were a service manager, no skin out of my wallet, and good for business, if someone asks for a pro's solution. ( the good for business crack is probably unfair, not knowing the guy)

Of course, with this approach, the new pan might duplicate the same problems , being a mass produced part. I would work on the bolt first, being easier to replace and generally made with less precision than a cast part.

My repair decisions all consider costs. As the others have suggested, check the mating surfaces, the bolt might not be flat enough, something in the surfaces must be wrong. I would polish everything mirror flat before I would tear into the car, unless I ran a shop and could just wave my coffee mug around and get things done by others at a bargain rate.

I hope the tape works, but the threads are not supposed to do the work of retaining fluids , since the bolt is designed to use a sealing washer. It wouldn't be my long term solution, but I am not a snob about results either.

 

Completely agree with your point of view and logic. No way am i considering messing with pan replacement, no way! Also agree with your point about threads not being primary sealing mechanism. My point is the stock plug just doesn't seem to have much exposed gasket material. But all that said, I will pay closer attention to the pan surface if i decide to re-drrain the oil. I just did the oil change myself on Monday, hesitant to go drain it now. Some guys talk about attaching shop vac to oil filler, putting vacuum on the crankcase and removing the plug without loosing oil for quick piug change. Appreciate your comments......

 

Glad you are tolerant of my thinking, it is one of the few areas that fit my skill set, so I am full of advice. I just hope to god nothing blows up.

The vacuum seems like a lot of monkey motion for a non problem. Just drain the oil and reuse it, then you can work as you choose, and with less noise. Or just buy another bolt and spiff that up before a quick swap.

The amount of gasket material is not critical, as the barrier only has to stop one molecule, thickness is good, but for redundancy only. I was well exposed to this concept when I had a roommate who worked with turbo compressors, A high speed vaned wheel that spins fast enough to compress gas into liquid .

The wheel used a knife edge in lead as the seal, the smallest sealing surface available, to prevent drag. Even one molecule penetrating the seal would throw the wheel off balance, destroying the mechanism. This would trigger a call to my roommate, the customer complaint guy. At the time, 1970s , one pump would generate about $125, 000 an hour, so the complaints were always very passionate. Most of the turbine wheels exploded in spin testing, and in the beginning of the company only the founding engineer was skilled enough to make one, and most still exploded in testing.

 

Thank you for the "turbo tech lesson". Never expected a dripping drain plug to segue to exploding turbine vane. But any education is good thing. Back to the dripping oil plug...think if this continues and bothers me further I'll drain and polish the pan surface. See if that what the does.

 

Check the torque of the bolts holding the lower portion of the pan to the upper portion of it. Last year, I noticed that my oil pan was "wet" with oil. Not dripping at that point, but wet.

My car is a low mileage, not abused, 2001. The torque value for the bolts is pretty low, something like 8-9 ft/lbs, but I found out that ALL of the bolts on my pan were pretty loose. I snugged them, and the pan has remained dry ever since.

 

Thanks, but thats not my issue.

 

Most likely you have a nick/gouge in the seating area. Run a fingernail gently around there. I bet you'll feel it. There are a number of ways to skin this cat. You could ...

Polish (carefully) the seating area if you have a dremel and a steady hand

or

Get a different plug with a big nylon washer on it as someone suggested earlier which will give you a fatter seating area and hopefully get around the imperfection

or

Smear a coat of RTV on the o-ring whenever you change your oil

 

I think you are right on! I did feel very minor scratch when I changed the oil. Using my fingernail, I lightly scratched around the pan opening, intention was to be certain no residual was there. I did feel a minor scratch with my fingernail, never thinking it could cause leak. Thought plug gasket would counter any issues. But now that you point this out I think you are correct. Question is how would that occur? Only thionght I have is when last change was done, had dealer do it. Maybe they scrapped it when location the plug in the pan opening, Just my guess.

What is RTV?

And thank you for this guidance...

 

Silicone RTV RTV = Room Temperature Vulcanizing, Silicone

Click on link:


https://www.permatex.com/products/ga...-gasket-maker/

Bill

 

Give an untrained monkey a wrench and anything is possible.

 

funny...

 

I was referring to the dealership you said worked on the car last.