oil plan....what would you do

I have an oil leak at the oil drain plug. For whatever reason, the PO replaced the quick oil drain hose with a regular oil plug. Well, it leaks and over the winter, I want to pull the engine and repair/replace. If this were you folks, would you attempt a helicoil type repair or replace the oil pan. I definitely want to use the quick drain hose setup when I do this. I only want to pull the engine once and want to get it right even if it means spending a little more on the front end. What do ya'll think?

Steve,
Can't wait for White Lake!!! (now that my silver is up & runnin)
Don't pull the engine for that!(We) can stop that leak. Can you make it to the fall? If not drain the oil & check the condition of the pan. It may have a bunch of sealant goobbering it up. Clean it up and install your new quick drain, more than snug but leave room to tighten it up if you need to. Worse comes to worse. We'll talk and I'll send you the rite stuff to seal it, even if the threads are striped. So at most you may have to change the oil twice.

The oil pan is a flat peice of sheet metal, stamped into shape with tons of pressure. The boss / bung is a "nut" welded or crimped to the drain hole to give it thickness for the threads. If its crimped it can be damaged easier than welded. But maybe there was a problum with the quick drain so they put a drain plug back in. I put a new one on the ski-tique cause the old one was showing it's age.

I can't see your oil pan from here, but if it's like mine the drain is on the lowest part (sump) l/h side. It's not real hard to get to. Do ya think it can wait till fall, how bad is the leak ?

Marty,
I'll never let the oil trickle drain over nite again. Thanks!!!
Steve,
I think your leak is very fixable. (from here)

Waterdog,
It's an annoyance leak. I bought the boat in April and have put 35 hours on it. During that time, it's leaked at most 1/2 quart. It can wait till fall, but I definitely want it fixed. I have some oil absorber pads underneath the leak, but it's still pretty impossible to keep the bilge clean with that going on. Thankfully, my boat doesn't take on much water from the packing or otherwise so I'm not dumping (like BP) in the lake.

79,
I've never had the plug out so I don't know. That would be the ideal easy fix. I had though about waiting until fall since that would give me plenty of Saturday time to look at it more closely and it would be do for an oil change then anyway, but I may do it prior to that in hopes that it is simply a washer as you suspect.

Marty,
I too like the idea of the air hose in the dipstick too. Seems like it'd make quick work of the oil change. (When I get the drain hose reinstalled that is)

Thanks guys, as i mentioned in the original post, this is something that I thought may be a much bigger job (I.e. engine removal required) and may need to wait until the fall. Your suggestions lead me to believe that it can be at least troubleshot much more easily and perhaps I can get it to stop leaking prior to the end of the season

well, i drained the oil today and had a closer look at the oil drain plug and the drain hole itself. The plug itself looks like some sort of self tapping larger sized plug. Here are a couple of poor photos of it.





You can't make much of the photo of the drain plug hole, but here goes anyway:



Now the previous owner told me that he put this drain plug in there b/c he never could get the quick drain tight enough (not to leak). I'm guessing he felt that this new drain plug would do the trick. Now I'm uncertain of what to do. I have no reason to think that the quick drain hose won't leak if I put it on and I know for a fact that the drain plug will leak when I reinstall it. Getting that quick drain hose back on looks like it could be a real chore. What would you folks do? I'm 99% certain that the rear main seal is leaking as well. I'm not thru with my season yet. Options:

1. reinstall the known leaking plug, refill with oil, expect the same annoying oil leak and enjoy until offseason when engine can be removed to fix RMS and oil pan/drain plug leak

2. reinstall quick drain hose and expect a leak. If no leak then maybe RMS can be replaced w/o removing engine.

Anybody got any sealant or other suggestions on how I can stop the leak with either the drain plug OR the quick drain hose (obviously, I'd like to put the quick drain hose back). If I can stop this oil drain plug leak, I would prevent having to pull the engine although the RMS will still need to be replaced.

Also, how long can this engine sit with no oil in it or filter on it? How quickly must I act?

thanks Pete, comments/suggestions noted! How long can this engine sit with no oil/filter?

Just wondering how this ended up and what you did to fix the problem? I have a leak from the pan to quick drain connection. about 1 qt over 3 wks. I haven't tried tightening it as I wanted to do some research first.

-Spiral