OK, thru the drama of shearing a bolt behind the front cover, I have been forced to remove my oil pan and front cover in order to remove this broken bolt. After removing the oil pan, my bottom end is very clean in my opinion for a vehicle that has 118k+ miles on it. My question is this, while I have the bottom end exposed, would it be a good idea to re-torque the main bearing caps and the rod caps? Is there anything else I should do on the front end while I've got the timing cover off? When I replace the timing cover, should I add some RTV to the gasket, or would that be overkill?

 

You shouldn't need to mess with the bottom half, unless you are having a problem.

Check the tension on your timing chain. With your mileage, it wouldn't hurt to replace the set. Normally, I would say to put new oil pump gears, but with your being an )#, you may not want to mess with it if you have good oil pressure.

I would use RTV putting the front cover back on, and replace your front main seal while you are at it.

 

So what is an )# exactly? I was planning on supplementing the front cover gasket with RTV, just wanted to make sure that was OK. I honestly don't have the funds to replace the front main seal at this point in time. I guess if it becomes an issue down the road, I can pull it and replace it then. The engine itself looks super clean on the bottom end. Haven't gotten the front cover off yet to see what the timing chain tension looks like. As far as I know at this point, I have good oil pressure. The cleanliness of the bottom end would lead me to believe that everything is OK in that regard.

 

Do not use RTV and a gasket, it will leak everytime, use one or the other.

 

Forget to add...do NOT retourqe anything, unless you are taking the rod caps off leave it alone.
The bolts are as tight as they are going to get and you cant "tighten" the rod bearings back up by tightening the bolts.

 

OK, I just wanted to make sure. See, that's why I ask on here first instead of just running off and doing stuff.

 

I already installed the water pump, but I put a really thin coat of RTV on both sides of the gasket. I really don't want to have to take that thing back off if I can help it.

 

I believe a )# is an '03, he just must have held the shift key by mistake.

 

Well, thanks to OK bringing up the oil pump thing, I figured while I had the front cover off, I'd open up the oil pump and check out it's condition. Good thing I did. When I first opened it up, I almost just put the cap back on and called it a day. It looked great. Pulled the inner gear out, looked great as well, no scoring, pitting or broken teeth. Pulled the outer gear and that was a different story. It also had none of the above, but it was broken in two different places, so that there was slightly less than a quarter of the outer gear separated from the rest of it. The way it broke, the rest of the gear was still holding the small piece in place, but the possibility of what could have happened is scary. See, further proof that God works in mysterious ways. If I had not sheared off that silly little bolt, I never would have gone to all the trouble of pulling the front cover, and had OK not mentioned the oil pump thing earlier, I might not have opened it up to inspect it. Boy am I glad I did.
Sorry for the long post.

BTW, the aforementioned silly little bolt came out with absolutely no problem. There was enough sticking out for me to grab with my needle nose vise grips and it came right on out.

 

Congrats on getting the bolt out. That's a stressful thing when that happens.