826 rear diff drain plug issue

Jeff Gibson · Apr 4, 2012

First let me thank everyone for insisting on a splitting stand for the clutch job I did on this tractor. I built one from I beam and it made splitting this tractor almost to easy... So back to my new issue I cant get the rear drain plug out to finish draining the trans fluid. The plug is stripped out and it wont budge didn't think you could strip out a square hole but you can. Considering two options, drill out the middle of the plug and tap it for a smaller plug or pull the cover from the lift pump and use a suction machine to remove the fluid. Can I get all the fluid out going thru the lift pump cover? Any other options I haven't considered?

Janicholson · Apr 4, 2012

Drill it out with a 1/4" dia bit. Realize it will get messy at the end of the operation. When oil is found, stop drilling, and use a thin punch to enlarge the hole. Let it drain till it is empty. Then drill it out to 5/8 in stages. use a square, non spiral stud remover to remove the plug. Clean out any chips, rinse and install a new plug. Refill. Jim

pete 23 · Apr 4, 2012

I would get into it with a die grinder with a small round carbide tip and reshape the square. Then make a tool (grind one to fit). Make it long enough to get a pipe wrench on the tool, put a bottle jack up against the tool and put a lot of force holding the tool in the plug and pull away with the pipe wrench. I took a lot of those plugs out that way. Not that they were stripped all the way out but too tight to come out with a breaker bar. When I worked at John Deere for a while, those guys heated the plugs. I never felt comfortable doing that with oil in side.

TJV · Apr 5, 2012

I have in the past I have welded a bolt into the hole then let it cool and put a wrench on the bolt head and turnd them out. use the biggest bolt you can get into the stripped out square hole maybe even grind the threads off a little to be able to use a bigger bolt then weld around it the heat from welding also hepls to make break the plug loose or at least when it cools it shrinks a little making it come out.

mkirsch · Apr 5, 2012

"When I worked at John Deere for a while, those guys heated the plugs. I never felt comfortable doing that with oil in side."

Maybe this will make you feel more comfortable about it:

Keep in mind the oil is INSIDE, away from the flames.

Oil will self-ignite if you get it hot enough, but there is such a mass of oil and cast steel there that your piddly little oxy-acetylene rig could not possibly get it all that hot.

Not only that, but the hot oil would have to have air to burn. Heating at the bottom of the sump like they were, even if a little oil at the bottom DID get hot enough it's smothered by all the other oil above it.

Even if you burned through the rush of oil would just extinguish the torch.

Heating on a freshly drained sump, yeah, that could get messy. There's just a thin coating of oil on the castings, and lots of atomized oil in the air.

826 rear diff drain plug issue

Jeff Gibson

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Janicholson

Well-known Member

pete 23

Well-known Member

TJV

Member

mkirsch

Well-known Member

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