tranny drain plug stripped, what to do Options

[drewvw]

I went to change my tranny fluid today and found that my drain plug is rounded out pretty good. Fill plug is fine, and I was happy to find she was at least filled with oil.

Questions:

1) Whats the best way to get this thing out of there? I don't have a welder. Can I JB Weld a hex bolt in there and break it free? Looks like it hasn't moved in decades.

2) I took out that plug on the bottom (the one with the spring and ball bearing) in an attempt to get it to drain. Went back in fine...did I screw anything up by taking it out??

Thanks in advance...
drew

[racunniff]

I ran into this problem - but it was the *fill* plug that would not budge. Fortunately, I followed the sage advice of not opening the drain plug until I had the fill plug out. I tried all sorts of things - heat (both hot air gun as well as a torch), a chisel, sticking a bit of metal in with the drain plug removal tool, cursing, beating my head against the tranny, etc. What finally worked was similar to the "17mm Allen wrench" trick. Unfortunately, nobody around here seemed to carry such an item. However, M10 nuts/bolts have 17mm heads. So, I welded a bolt to a nut:



This fit nicely in the socket on my breaker bar:



And fit snugly in the drain plug. I started turning... and it *still* would not budge. In fact, with enough pressure, I *broke the weld bead on top of the bolt and the bolt started turning* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) Probably because of oils on the bolt that I had not bothered to clean off.

What finally worked was when I filled in the space between the nut head and the bolt with welding beads. Effectively, I built a 17mm Allen wrench (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) . It looks like (IMG:style_emoticons/default/barf.gif) but it did the trick. Once I got the drain plug out, I welded the bolt to it to avoid a repeat until I can get a replacement filler hole plug:



I'm on the hunt for a real 17mm Allen socket. Does anybody know why the genius who designed the plug remover gave it *round corners*? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/chair.gif)