Try getting an 18mm Allen wrench or socket bit. Use some heat on the
housing to loosen it.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Simon
Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 8:44 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Deep in the Abyss... a Tranny fill plug!

OK, so the engine and a lot of other stuff is now off the van, so I
decided that having all this extra room to play in is the perfect
opportunity to try to get the syncro's tranny fill plug out.
Well, it's worse than I thought.
The fill plug is stripped out so badly by the P.O. that my 17mm allen
wrench is way too small.
A 19mm bolt head just about fit, so I ground it down a hair and put two
nuts on the other end.
The nuts turn on the bolt. No matter how hard I tighten them together,
they turn.
The bolt head wants to pop out, anyway. That thing's really stripped.
Can't get a Vise-Grips in there. It wouldn't matter, since there's no
way I can try to turn the bolt-in-the-plug and apply leverage with a
pry bar to keep the head IN the plug, anyway.
Not enuff room in there to get the vise-grips or a pair of channel
locks on the external part of the plug that sticks out past the case.
Yes, I searched the archives. The best thing in there was the old
tighten-then-loosen trick (duh! I shoulda thought of that!)
It didn't work- the plug's too stripped.
I've got a set of easy-outs... but there's really no room to aim the
drill properly without dropping the main coolant lines.

What would YOU do?!?

On the plus side, an engine swap is a good time to strip out all of the
talent-less wiring done by a P.O... at least the SWAP part of this swap
is proceeding nicely...

-Simon
'86 Syncro Westy

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