Old thread but it came up on a search, so I'll add my input. Had a leaking transmission. Nothing severe but I don't like leaving drops in my garage or worse, someone else's driveway. It had been leaking a long while and it was so messy it was hard to tell where the leak actually was - shift shaft seal? Dip stick seal? Pan gasket? So I cleaned it up and found that it was the pan. Pulled the pan and did the usual - cleaned up the mating surfaces, applied my favorite gasket sealer (Threebond), a Wix gasket, and went to put it back together. Ran two bolts up to hold it in place. Then ran all the others up. Crap - not threading in all the way. WTF!? - I just took the dang bolts out!
As it turns out, for many reasons, one should clean out those threads before putting the bolts back in. Obviously a lot of grime down there and steel into aluminum has some cautionary tales. So I ran a tap through everything, hit the holes with brake cleaner, and did it all over. AFTER having to clean all the dang Threebond off the gasket and mating surfaces.
I like to coat the threads on any fastener that is of dissimilar material from what it's screwing into. In this case blue Loctite. Ran all the bolts in no problem. That is until the last bolt, which brings this story full circle to the topic. STRIPPED!!!
I'm sure the neighbor kids learned a few new words despite my garage doors being closed. So off comes the pan to fix that. But not that day. Sometimes it's best to walk away, have a beer, and let it rest.
So I'll preface the next part with the fact that I have been working on things with wheels a long time as an amateur. Mostly motorcycles, some vintage and some new. ALL with lots of aluminum. I also did a lot of work on vintage BMW cars and Porsche 911s. Again - lots of non-ferrous stuff including Magnesium. Where I'm going with this is that I have learned that repeated screwing and unscrewing into Aluminum is no bueno. Like "bend overs" to the human body (a joke among tradesmen), there is a finite amount of unscrew/screws in aluminum. After a few you end up with that pile of thread shaped shrapnel like what the thread starter posted. So I use studs with red Loctite in certain instances. Like this one on the Jeep transmission. So I bought 13 SS 8mm x 1.25 x 25mm studs. AND one 10mm x 8mm stepped stud (commonly used on chainsaws).
The 10mmx8mm stud worked out really well. Easier than a helicoil or Time Sert and under the circumstances just as good. So those are all in place and setting while I wait for the LubeLocker gasket to arrive. Now that I've added the studs to the mix I feel better about the different torque value needed to make sure the LubeLocker seals.
And re: torque values - I don't trust them under these circumstances. Like the thread starter, long ago I trusted the values and stripped aluminum. I stopped using a torque wrench on threaded aluminum over 20 years ago. Now it's by feel. On fasteners of this size I use a nut driver, NOT a socket wrench. It's just way to easy to strip aluminum with a ratchet. I learned in the trades that the average man applies 35 ft/pounds of pressure holding a socket wrench with one hand (like grasping a door knob - not levering the handle). Think of how tough it would be to modulate to 8 ft/pounds. Hence the nut driver. Very easy to modulate force.
. Seriously, I thought I did everything right. 
After a search it seems fairly common to strip one or two or and I even read about one guy stripping 5, but 8? I guess it’s off to O’Rielly’s in the am for a heli-coil kit. I’ve never used one before. Anyone have any tips or tricks or is it pretty easy? Also, can anyone confirm that they’re M8 1.25 pitch 15mm so I can get the right heli-coil?
Could there have been something else I did wrong? Also, if it matters I’m pretty sure this is the first service on this transmission as it only has 76k and had only been driven light duty on the road.
