Need advice -- oil galley plug, What to seal with? Options

[BillC]

I think I found the oil leak on the bottom of my engine. When they rebuilt it, they installed screw-in oil galley plugs. This one, on the front of the engine, appears to be the leak -- it was a little loose and there was oil all over the back of the motor mount bracket.


The plug is 22mm with 1.5mm thread, straight thread (no taper), and is fairly short. It looks like they might have used a very small amount of gasket shellac to seal it originally. They did stake the plug, and it didn't rotate, but it unscrewed very easily and turned-in just a little past the stake when I tried putting it back in.

What should I use to seal this plug? I'm guessing pipe dope isn't the right stuff, since the plug isn't tapered. More gasket shellac? Red loctite? Something else?

Thanks!

[Superhawk996]

The one thing I’ve never liked about this plug is that it is a steel plug in an aluminum case.

The differing thermal expansion between the metals poses a real problem.

I have two engines that will be rebuilt when I get my garage built and my shop put back together.

I’m planning on making this plug out of aluminum to see if I can solve its propensity to weep. I’ve never had occasion to remove that plug once an engine was assembled and I can’t come up with a logical reason the plug was made of steel in the first place besides cost and off the shelf availability.

Will be years before I get a chance to do this but I’m looking forward to trying it to solve this problem area on the T4 engine.