Does anyone know of an alternative way to drain the oil from a '86 Vanagon GL 2.1 besides the normal
drain plug?  BMP designs sells a "Top Side Oil Changer" that uses a hand vacuum pump (just like Austin
Power's) to draw the oil out of the dipstick tube for $49.95 but I don't want to have to store the
thing.

I'm thinking the oil could be drained from the the oil pressure sender instead?

My stripped oil drain plug was repaired with a heli-coil.  Last oil change I used blue locktite on the
drain plug as a precaution against the bolt vibrating out and to stop a leak.  Now its time to change
the oil again and I'm worried that when the drain plug is loosened the locktite will prevent the plug
from separating from the helicoil and consequently strip out the threads on the case.  Perhaps my logic
is faulty but I know the helicoil compresses to thread into the case and once the drain plug is in there
the helicoil can no longer compress.  If both bolt and coil try to come out at once the Threads Per
Inch or Pitch will be different enough to cross thread the softer alloy case.

I'm told the only permanent fix to the stripped plug is to tear down the bottom end, weld the original
hole closed, then redrill it using a jig or fixture (so the hole is straight) and tap new threads.  This
is obviously expensive won't fix the basic design flaw of the short reach threads in a soft alloy.

Any suggestions and or flames would be appreciated (just don't send the flames to the whole list)

I wasn't able to access the archives so please forgive if this is a re-hash.