Oil filter housing bolt snapped

[Injected]

Wanted to replace the Oil filter housing gasket, one of 6 bolts, upper left bolt was seized and snapped. Drilled it out until I could take housing off, extracting is not working out, damaging upper left corner.

What are my options? Go with RVT and 5 bolts torqued a bit harder than the 10-12NM?

[Injected]

[Injected]

Im considering JB weld to patch it up and then redoing it with a 5MM drill and tap

[bmwman91]

Oof, that sucks. You might be able to get away with 5 bolts since the upper corner there is not (I think?) under full oil pressure. However, I would avoid the RTV route. RTV is just going to allow the gasket to slide around (and out of place) as the housing is bolted back down. The best thing to do is go dry, or if you are really paranoid, get some Permatex High Tack Spray-A-Gasket and apply a VERY light coat to each side. It is mostly just to keep the thing from sliding around, but again, if you spray it on too heavily it will act like a lubricant when bolting things down.

Avoid getting metal shavings in the big round hole up at the top...that is the main outlet for clean oil where it goes into the engine. Metal shavings will end up places you do not want them. Maybe tape over it while working.

As far as extraction of the busted bolt, good luck. I can't see it working out well with the timing case on the car. If you end up going to the trouble to remove it, then you can at least look into a late M42 (1994+) timing case since it uses a plastic guide in place of the awful deflector sprocket which is somewhat prone to failure.

[e30davie]

Hard to see exactly what you are dealing with there , but if you can id get a small nut and tig weld weld it to what is left of the bolt. The tig heat will shock it and it should release, and then you can wind it out with the nut. Ive done this a few times, works well when it does.

[jsnppp]

+1 to all the above. Not a place I would want to be for sure. But it's doable. I'd try the heat soak (remove all fuel + oils first of course) and then perhaps a small bolt extractor. Heat is really critical, but man, be careful if you do in the engine compartment. Let us know what happens.