take the bolt out and see if its stripped, clean up the threads in the hole with a tap, and reinstall it man..

 

hmm..i've never used a tap before...guess its time to learn how. thanks.

 

hate to sound like an *** but what is rtv?

 

Room Temp Vulcanizing rubber. This question pops up every month, lol...

To the poster about 5 up- don't let the RTV sit for an hour before final torque, it will be well beyond cured at that point. Apply the bead, let sit for about 5 minutes, install pan, initially tighten all bolts in a cross-torque pattern until the RTV starts squishing out at every bolt, let sit for another 10-15 minutes, then perform final torque...If you tighten them down so hard that the RTV is so thin you basically have metal-to-metal contact, you've defeated the purpose of the exercise...

Cleanliness is key to success- use a good solvent such as acetone to thoroughly clean the mating surfaces before RTV application...

 

Do I absolutely need to use RTV sealant for the oil pan? There's seperate instructions for doing it with a new gasket and also doing it with RTV. I'm going to have to pick up some RTV sealant anyways, but I was just wondering. Currently my car doesn't leak anything.

 

Dude, my oil pan was put on with RTV only during the rebuild. 8,000 miles later, not a single drop has spilled from it. GE and Dow Corning make the best RTV's, IMO, and I've been using the stuff for 15+ years, so I can vouch for its effectiveness. Gasket doesn't do you much good on the oil pan, because the bolts don't get torqued down enough to compress the gasket, which is how it should be with a non-structural panel...

Use a good RTV, follow my instructions above, make sure the bead applied is sufficient to do the job, and you shouldn't have any problems. Use the gasket for a conversation piece in your living room...