Valley Pan Repair Nightmare! Finally over!

[Ogopogo]

So, I've been wrenching away for the last 3 1/2 days on my '02 4.4. I put together a comprehensive parts list of goodies, and armed with the fantastic DIY courtesy of Twin Turbo GTR, I delved in.

All was going pretty well, apart from the usual PITA issues (fuel injector clips, etc), but I plugged along. I did the valley pan, valve cover gaskets, and spark plugs. This morning, I was down to the short strokes, re-connecting electrical, putting on the various covers, mixing up coolant, and gettting ready to bleed the cooling system. I start adding coolant, and hear it dripping quite rapidly on the floor, originating from the back of the engine. WTF!!

With the help of a neighbour, and a mechanics mirror, we were able to see the leak comming from the metal collection manifold at the back of the engine. Turns out the gasket (passengers side) had slipped a little durring installation, and had missed a couple of bolt holes. OK, a pain to get to, but fixable. I backed off the three bolts to the drivers side of the manifold, and removed the three on the other side to recover the gasket. It took a little trial and error, to figure out the correct orientation of the gasket, to say nothing of the hassle of being splayed out over the top of the engine for long periods of time (and you thought the whole "Planking" phase was dead). Working in extremely tight quarters, I was happy to be getting the issue resolved. Then, all of a sudden, one of the bolts got real easy to turn. I pulled the ratchet away, and heard something clink to the floor. The bolt I was tightening, sheared off!

Wow, I really didn't need that! There is about 1/4" of thread remaing on the bolt head, and at this point I really don't know what to do. Will 2/3 of the bolts on one side be enough to do the trick, or am I in for something much more involved? Thanks in advance for any advice.