Mistery bolt laying in my oil pan

[Schniddy]

http://www.r3vlimited.com/gallery/files/8/5/8/7/0720082250.jpg

When I dropped my oil pan last month this bolt was sitting there. It has threads on the outside and is hollow on the inside with a hex fitting. I was told its probably a plug from my head. Under the cam there is a plug or two going into the casting.

I've looked and there is nothing under the cam that resmbles a plug hole. On the passenger side there are about 6 or so holes going along the outer edge. Tried that, but the bolt just goes right down through the block to the ground.

Is there anywhere else this "plug" could of came from, or is it somewhere on the head?

The INSIDE of the bolt is scraped up. Looks like bear claw markins running down it. The outside has tiny nicks going around it. Hopfully nothing was messed up.

[E30Kaiser]

Part of a drain plug most likely. Probably someone did the same thing I did and broke their drain plug in half and part of it fell in.

EDIT: For clarity of message

[Schniddy]

Part of a drain plug most likely. Probably someone did the same thing I did and broke their drain plug in half and part of it fell in.

EDIT: For clarity of message

it has threads on the outside and is hollow on the inside with a hex fitting.

That dosn't sound like a broken off drain plug to me?

[jlevie]

If there's a hole all the way through the piece you found and the threads are the same as that of a drain plug, I'd say that you have your hands on the remains of a snapped off drain plug.

[Schniddy]

If there's a hole all the way through the piece you found and the threads are the same as that of a drain plug, I'd say that you have your hands on the remains of a snapped off drain plug.

[E30Kaiser]

My drain plug looks like the broken one. I don't know why yours looks so different unless they had to retread the hole or something.

[Schniddy]

This might explain why the crush washers I bought online are way too small. If they fit the diameter of the "broken one", then it could very well be the drain bolt.

[Hallen]

Wow, that could have been bad. If they snapped the old one, and then rethreaded the hole to be that much bigger AND they didn't drop the pan to do it (or they would have gotten the old pug out of the pan) then you might very well have had a bunch of metal shavings floating around in your oil. Hopefully they did a second oil change right away to flush that out.

[jlevie]

The plug shown in the picture is not an OE drain plug. All OE drain plugs that I know of are hollow to protect the pan threads in the event of over tightening. The remains shown on the left look exactly like the threaded portion of an OE plug.