Stripped Cam Cover Bolt
 

Hi guys, I had a lot of oil leaking out of the bolts on the top of the cam cover (valve cover I think it's also called), my mechanic tried to seal the bolts with silicone but they kept leaking so I went to Volvo and they informed me that it was more likely the PCV system, I had that replaced and most of the bolts have stopped leaking, except for a few, which upon further inspection turned out to be stripped.

I got one of the stripped bolts out and saw that it wasn't the bolt that was stripped, it had literally pulled the threads from either the head, or the cam cover. At first I thought about re-tapping the screws, but then realized that both parts are made of aluminum and I'm not sure if you can re-tap aluminum.

I'm at a loss here, oil leaks out of the hole so rapidly that it fills up the valve cover after about an hour of driving, this quickly destroyed my old wires. I've heard that a new cam cover runs about 600-800 and a used one probably isn't too much better, plus installation this would total the car for me, which seems really silly over a stripped bolt.

My question to you guys is if there is a way to either re-tap, Helicoil, or Seal the stripped bolts so that I don't have to replace the cam cover or head. If not I might have to sell my 850 :(

I would just helicoil the stripped threads in the head and get new bolts. The threads only go on the head(not the valve cover) and i would recomend thredloc for all the bolts.

Thank you so much for the response, so none of the threads come in contact with the valve cover? Also just ordered the bolts from Volvo.