Matt,
The tranny drain bolt on the civic is one of those square head deals
where a 3/8" ratchet without socket fits into it, right?
Sometimes they can be very stubborn if overtightened but the key is to
get a good "snap" on it. Try hitting a ratchet you don't care about
with a hammer to break it loose. With any drain plug, the torque spec
is low because you want to just crush the crush washer, but not too
much. Typically a Jiffy Lube place won't care, so I'd expect them to
overtighten it. However I'm not sure that if you torqued it with
30lb-ft you could break it with 30lb-ft of slow pressure, because the
crush washer deforms when you torque it. Best bet is to whack it with
something or try even more force via extensions etc.
If they really overtightened it to the point of stripping the threads,
you might also see the crush washer look kinda mangled. Does it look
normal?
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-autox@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-ba-autox@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Matt Drance
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 2:13 PM
To: ba-autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Jiffy Lube and drain bolts
Hi,
Some of you may recall the stripped oil pan in my wife's Civic that I
posted about a month or so ago. Well it's time for her ATF to be
changed, and I cannot break the drain bolt loose. According to my
torque wrench there is more than 80lb/ft of torque on it. The service
manual says 30 lb/ft. I'm assuming the highschoolers at Jiffy Lube used
an impact wrench to put it back on when she had them change the ATF 30k
miles ago. Now I'm paranoid that when I finally get the bolt loose, it
will carry nice metal shavings on the way out. I'm wondering how to
proceed and if there's any way I can pin this on them if they in fact
have stripped the transmission's drain plug threads. Options:
1) Go to Jiffy Lube and ask them to change the ATF, ask to see the drain
bolt, since they have a record of doing it at 30K miles.
2) Go to a dealer and have them do the service, inspect the
transmission, get them to document the overtorquing of the bolt.
3) There's no way I can prove they're at fault, just do it myself and
pray.
If anyone has dealt with this sort of thing before I'd appreciate any
input. The oil pan I was able to live with as its easy to replace; this
is something else entirely.
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