A helicoil is a way of repairing stripped threads.

Especially good for ham fisted engineers like myself!

http://youtu.be/sQHRB2ElZJ0

This will explain.

jrkitching said:

Chances are they will all be within limits so you'll have peace of mind for the price of a set of feeler gauges & a cam cover gasket.

Click to expand...

Turns out you were right! They are all within tolerance. So now all I have to do is wait for the helicoil kit to arrive and do a permanent job on the damaged thread.

Then hopefully another 100k of happy motoring