Carpokes Porsche Forum

Just replaced all my lower balance shaft seals, smoothed my loctite over the mating surfaces, and very carefully started torquing the bolts in order. Then I got to one of the short ones, and I felt it wasn’t getting any tighter. I stopped immediately, but I fear the hole is going to be stripped if I continue turning that bolt. Not sure what to do at this point. Can I get away without having that bolt torqued down ? Or do I need to address this now. If so… helicoil ??

You could just put a nice coating of gasket maker silicon around that area (on the outside) and call it a day. I’ve done that to seal the rear of the balance shaft housing. The goal is to keep it from leaking oil.

I'd helicoil it. Helicoils in aluminum are stronger than the original threads, so make for a permanent and professional repair. Practice on a spare aluminum part if you are new to doing it. It's quick and easy really. My motor has several helicoils and I've never had a problem with any of them.

Don’t skip that bolt it’ll leak or worse. If it’s already stripped, helicoil or time-sert it now. Better to fix it right than risk oil everywhere later. Check the bolt too if it’s stretched, replace it.

I'm a time-sert fan for durability/function, with heli-coils a little more forgiving especially if you haven't done a thread repair like this before. Fixing the thread is the right way to solve the problem.

Thanks for the feedback ! It looks like heli coil is the way I’ll go. I hate the idea of having to do everything that I just did over again, but I do want it done right. I ordered all new bolts also. Thanks again !

Use a Helicoil kit to repair the stripped hole.