How to remove toggle bolt drain plug???

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Jun 11, 2002
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Fort Smith, AR
This is on my son's Escape. One of the quick change oil shops replaced the oem oil plug with dang this. It leaves about a 1 inch pool of oil on the garage floor every night no matter how tight I turn it. How in blazes do I get it out without dropping the pan?

Looks just like the toggle plug pictured 1/2 way down this page: oil plug toggle bolt
 
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these oil change places are not all bad but some are just real bad they tighten up bolts and filters like they are putting on lug nuts..
$600.00 for an oil pan? Maybe at the dealer..check prices and also look at a salvage yard we just picked up a pan for an engine we are rebuilding and we paid $75.00 in perfect condition for a nissan..
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Originally Posted By: JRed
Wonder if they stripped the pan threads out and used that as a cheapo fix.

Hope not.
I'm sure they did.


Or were the unlucky saps that had to remove it after being cross threaded by the last oil change guy.

I'm surprised that most of these places don't have a thread chaser and a cache of single and double oversize plugs on hand. Would be a lot better than one of those bathtub stopper jobs.
 
Even though you probably will not get any satisfaction, I'd bring the car back to the oil change place and get them to fix the situation. They should stand behind their work, no matter how shoddy it is.
 
Remove the bolt and use a heavy duty magnet to get the peice left in the drain pan, if it is not coming out just leave it, no way it can get sucked into the engine. Retap the plug to the next size up and its fixed.
 
Originally Posted By: defektes
Retap the plug to the next size up and its fixed.
This is a good idea. I hope it's a V6 model, because they have an M12 plug. You can go up to 1/2, 9/16, or 14 mm.

If it's a 4-cyl, I think it's already 14 mm. I don't know of any 5/8 or 16 mm drain plugs out there.
 
Just coming across this ancient thread now. Having just replaced such a toggle bolt plug that had started to leak, and struggled a little with removal myself, I thought I'd share my easy experience for others that might come across this thread.

The toggle hinges at the end of the bolt. Unscrew to the stop, then you should be able to stick something (screwdriver, awl, or similar) into the hole and tilt the toggle to parallel with the bolt instead of perpendicular to it, then just pull it out.

Mine appeared to be this one: https://www.dormanproducts.com/p-26829-65240.aspx (image below), and had indeed been installed after the threads had been stripped during previous ownership of my 2003 Honda Odyssey.

The bolt hole was a mess; front was totaled, rear still appeared to be OK. I re-tapped it with the E-Z Coil M14-1.5 (1.5D/21mm) kit, and I'm hoping I won't have to retap to M16, because there isn't enough clearance to get a drill in there with the frame in the way, and dropping the pan requires removing the exhaust... blah blah blah. Luckily on these vehicles the original plug is only 9mm long but the bolt hole is something like 20mm, so only half of the threads can be stripped out by careless people. You can get a longer bolt to grab the threads in the rear, and I have one on order for the next oil change just to set my mind at ease, though I was able to torque the somewhat-longer-than-9mm Dorman plug I installed to spec and it seems solid.

Incidentally, it's just a flange bolt, which you can get in all sizes from e.g. BelMetric. Might have to cut it down to length. You just have to be sure the flange diameter will fit if the port is recessed.

A nod to the E-Z Lok folks: I got a kit with the wrong size parts in it from the retailer, and when I reached out to E-Z Lok because it was then out of stock at the retailer and I had to do the repair that week, they immediately shipped me a replacement kit with the right parts via Next Day Air. Quality product and amazing customer service equals customer for life.
 

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