Arrggh... Stripped cyl. cover bolt hole - KZ1000K2

Here we go again...

I was replacing the cylinder cover head gasket and half moons because of a leak at the half moon by the #1 exhaust valve. Went through the process including measuring valve clearances (which were terrible but that's a story for another thread), went to put the bolts back in finger tight. Noticed that there was a bit of resistance on the aforementioned bolt, so I took it back out, cleaned it up because there was a little crud on it, reapplied a light smear of anti-seize and re-inserted it. When I got near the bottom I tried to snug it up just a little bit to make sure the threads weren't hanging up and it went slack. I removed the bolt and had some thread material with it.

I'm leery of tapping the hole because there isn't a lot of material there. The bolt hole kinda sticks out of the head casting, and it's pretty shallow too (maybe 10-12 mm depth). I know it's not a high-pressure seal like a head gasket but I don't want an unfixable oil leak. Any suggestions?

Just as an aside, I've got another '82, a J2 with an engine that was built years ago, supposedly a killer engine but I had carb problems with it. How hard would it be to swap the engine into the K2?

Timesert the hole. The timesert kit seems a bit high priced but it will be worth the investment. Since the bolt was pulled out with what appeared to be thread material, I suggest that the hole was previously helicoiled and these tend to pull out.

Yeah, I'm looking at the Timesert kit now. I've got to figure out which depth of insert I need (either 9.4 or 12mm), but the size and pitch are readily available at least. The price for the kit isn't too brutal, less than 70 bucks and it comes with 5 inserts. I'm used to seeing much higher prices for Caddy Northstar kits.