While chasing down an oil leak today (damn oil gauge connector), I noticed that one of the bell housing bolts was loose.

I am sure I torqued these to 30  ft lb as specified when the engine was out of the car this winter.

What should I do.  Re-torque to 30 ft lb.  Use  lock-tight, if so which one?  Or use a lock washer?  I think it is suppose to have flat washers and that is what I used.

Thanks, Jim

Thanks, should I go around and do all the bolts or just the loose one?

I've always used a lockwasher with the flat washer and torqued them to probably 50 ft. lbs. or so.  Never had any come loose.

SShink wrote:

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I've always used a lockwasher with the flat washer and torqued them to probably 50 ft. lbs. or so.  Never had any come loose.

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I agree. I use lock washers too and more torque on the bolts. The factory did things cheap, quick and only cared for 12 months or 12,000 miles. Not necessarily the best way.

Also, if you cleaned all the bolt hole's in the block with a tap, you may have removed more thread and the bolt isn't holding as tight at 30lb. I have a set of thread chasers that are a tad smaller so as to only clean the threads, not re-cut or remove any material.

Looks like I have something to do tomorrow.  Lock-washer sounds like a good idea.  I first thought I might have put the wrong washers on, so I went to some books and it said flat washers.  Thought about lock-washer and flat washer; but wanted to see what people with a ton of knowledge more than me thought about it.  thanks everyone