oil pan bolt or pan threads stripped, options?

[2.5-12]

alrighty -- thanks

[RangerGress]

The pan will fail before the bolt. Aluminum pan, steel bolt.

Drill the hole out and install an EZ-out or other thread repair device. Use some imagination to get the metal shavings out. What metal shavings you don't get out "should" be trapped by the oil filter.

If you do some searching around the Web for "oil pan repair", you should find some good tips.

[2.5-12]

my newest acquisition, the 1990 E34 525i has a pan bolt that isnt sealing.

The PO obviously over torqued the malleable aluminum bolt or pan (not sure which yet). doing the oil change a couple of days ago, I noticed that there was a small drip from the pan which I thought was just a loose plug, as it turns out, when I started putting the plug back in, it would hardly torque at all, maybe 1in/lb. probably not even that.

I have a few questions that I am not sure about myself;
1.) do E30s and E34s share oil pans on the M20B25?
2.) does the engine need to be moved at all to replace the pan?
3.) I have read that in some cases, BMW engineered the plug threads to fail before the oil pan threads, could that be the case here? both the pan and bolt looked fine at a glance but I didnt look at them closely.
4.) there are universal plugs that basically hold on to the inside of the plug opening and have a rubber seal with a metal backing plate and a wing nut, is that an acceptable fix for this problem, or should I just order a new OEM plug, try it and if the pan is stripped instead just replace the pan?

thanks!