I changed my trans fluild last saturday. I used a rubber gasket because it came with the filter. Well when I was putting the pan back on I noticed that two of the bolts were stripped out on the thread. They will go all the way up, but kept turning.(whoever did it last obviously didnt use a tourque wrench) No leaks though, until wednesday night I got home from work which is less than a mile drive. I came back out about an hour later to go. I noticed there was a nice size puddle under the tranny pan. A drip about every say 5-6 seconds.

Would that be because of the rubber gasket or the stripped bolts?

I took the pan off again and rubber gasket. I used red rtv sealant this time. I'm hoping this works.

also is it ok to use brake part cleaner to clean all the gunk on the bottom of the engine and tranny? just wondering dont want it to clean something its not supposed to

 

your leak is coming from lack of torque holding the gasket tight.

did you put the rtv on the gasket, or did you toss the gasket and use rtv only ?
try to allow plenty of time for the rtv to cure.

if that doesn't work, inspect the stripped holes and see if there's any available thread deeper in the hole, so that a slightly longer bolt might hold.

if that doesn't work, and you used gasket and rtv last time, try rtv only.

or, retap the stripped holes with the next size up. you might be able to buy a self tapping repair bolt

i think brake cleaner is ok. it used to be very harsh and melted plastic, but its a lot milder now. however, its sort of expensive. a cheaper product is engine cleaner. you spray it on and let it soak, then rinse. simple green is cheap and pretty good, but not great.

 

I tossed the gasket and used rtv only the second time. There is a slight leak still not as bad, just fluid built up, enough to see that its leaking, about every hour after I put in a quart to see if it would leak today at the 24 hour mark as thats how long rtv said it would take to cure. ya I think I might have to try a deeper bolt it looked like there was more room above it maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

I will try that and see

thanks

 

Be CAUTIOUS on deeper bolts ... I'd either retap larger or drill out and install a threaded insert

 

I put in the longer bolts. They were about 1/4 to 3/8 inch longer. One of them torqued all the way to 165 inch lbs the other only to 150 then kept turning, but it still clicked at 150, hoping that is enough. It hasn't leaked yet since I put them in.

So we'll see, it took 4 days last time for it to start leaking.

I may retap the 150 inch lbs tourqued one next weekend anyways, cos we have a thread tapper at work.

 

once threads are stripped, you cannot retap the hole the same original size. the correct way to fix your problem is to get a thread repair kit commonly know as a Helicoil kit. you could tap the holes to a larger size and use SAE bolts but that's not professional. Also when using RTV, it is CRUICIAL you don't gob it on. I use only a 1/8" bead so it doesn't ooze out all over. In my mechanical years, I've had to repair a lot of engines and transmissions due to someone going hog wild with RTV that works into the pan and plugs the pickup/filter

 

Ya, I will have to get a helicoil kit. The tapper at work is for 1/2 inch and the bolt holes are only 5/16 inch so its a big difference. This is my first RTV job, I was going to use it before once for a oil pan cos the pickup and tube were bad, but found out it was a head gasket as well so I traded it in it.

I definitely follow the direction on automotive products to the T, they know more than me about their products so. I got an 1/8 inch on it, just a little bit poked out here and there.

No leak still so I'll just have to go get the helicoil kit and fix the one stripped hole. Thanks 22dodge I was wondering what the kit was called I thought I saw it mentioned in here before. Though I couldn't remember.

Thanks everyone