Any Tip For Removing Tranny Drain Bolt?

[Fitz98]

2003 Suburban 1500 transmission drain bolt is very tight.
I don't want to damage it or strip the pan.
Will this come out eventually or damage something if I continue to work it?

Would like to have this available for future drains, otherwise I will just lower the pan.

 

[miden851]

having its image here would be helpful to come up with a solution of loosening it up

 

[paulo57509]

There is no factory drain plug; it must be an aftermarket install. Does it look like this?

Use two wrenches; one on the plug, the other on the nut behind it. The one shown is a pipe plug. People tend to over tighten these. Dep[ending on the brand, other plugs are bolts with seal washers (my preference).

 

[Fitz98]

It's just a drain bolt in a pan.
The staining around it is some Kroil I sprayed on it.
I looked at replacement pans just in case. It looks like the new pans do not have a drain bolt.

 

[Brian123]

What transmission does this vehicle have?

 

[Fitz98]

4L60-E

 

[JeffKeryk]

If is is the pan I am familiar with, GM used a shallow head bolt and they always seem to be over tightened from the factory.
I have had success with an impact and 6 sided socket. Get underneath, push up hard and use short bursts until it breaks torque.
You can order another drain plug if yours gets booghered up.

Good luck.

 

[Hall]

Sorry, have to ask, but are you turning it the right way ?

 

[paulo57509]

It's just a drain bolt in a pan.
The staining around it is some Kroil I sprayed on it.
I looked at replacement pans just in case. It looks like the new pans do not have a drain bolt.
View attachment 110608

It's a 4l60E with a deep pan. Never seen one with a plug from the factory. Some aftermarket pans have a plug. Looks like someone added a plug in the dimple. I'd drop the pan and have a look inside. Might as well change the filter and gasket.

 

[awguy]

Warm up the car. Put an ice cube on the bolt. Then try to loosen just a little bit and then tighten a tiny bit. Repeat. Make sure to use a 6 sided socket.

 

[Brian123]

Do you have a Breaker Bar, the kind you can put a socket on?

 

[FowVay]

That looks like one of the typical GM drain plugs that has a big rubber gasket attached to it. I would get a 1/2" drive socket of the correct size and a 18" breaker bar and then slowly apply torque in the proper direction. There is nothing special about this drain bolt but time has likely bonded the two mating surfaces in a manner that it's not wanting to let go. Make sure you keep your socket flat and perpendicular to the bolt head to give maximum torque loading as you muscle it loose.

 

[Leo99]

It should break loose before important something breaks. Might take a breaker bar with a pipe on the end or an impact wrench.

 

[wtd]

They started putting drain plugs in the pans of the 4L60E in 1999 and for several years after. I bought a 99 factory pan from GM for my 98 K1500 in 1999. The first one I got, I couldn't get the drain plug out of and returned it. The second one did come out. I tried taking them out before installation to make sure they would come out.

You will probably have to use heat to get it out. A friend of mine had a 2001 C1500 with that transmission and we could not get the drain plug out for anything. We ruined the head of the bolt and I didn't have a torch to heat it up. Try using heat before ruining the bolt head.

 

[clinebarger]

I stopped messing around with them, A new GM plug is $5 wholesale (24233099), I use my air hammer with a sharp chisel bit & catch the edge of the Hex to loosen the plug.

However....Using a (heavy hammer) air impact & a good chrome 1/2" drive 15mm socket while applying as much upward pressure as possible works much of the time.

 

[chainblu]

If you search the internet, you'll find this is common with the 4L60E. I struggled with mine, laying on my back for nearly an hour before 'old schooling' it and pulled the pan. I was then able to put the pan on my work bench and hammered on an impact socket. That got it off. The problem is that the head of the plug is so short you just can't get a good grip on it. I replaced the factory plug with a GM 24234212, which has a full sized head. It does stick out 1/8 inch below the pan and I'm OK with that.

 

[Fitz98]

Last time I was messing with a drain bolt was on my Expedition and I destroyed it, just by torquing it to spec. The nut on the inside lost its bond to the pan. and started to spin, lost its torque and leaked.
I did not want to get into that again. When I took off the pan, I was shocked to see how this nut looks. It is a monster. I wonder if this could spin loose and lose the nut's bond to the pan with too much force. Based on some of these stories it doesn't sound like it.
In the mean-while, I just took out the pan and did it the old-fashioned way, pumping out fluid first from the fill tube then drop the pan. No mess. Tranny fluid does not get changed that often, so maybe this is just one of those things to leave alone and not create a bigger problem. This is hard for me to do, if there is a drain bolt, I want it to be usable. I don't have an air impact or large enough compressor, but I tried my impact driver with adapter and socket while I had it out. Put some Kroil in there first and impacted away trying to get that Kroil to seep in.
Still no luck. I'm leaving this one alone before I screw it up and have to buy a new pan that does not have a bolt anyways.

 

[Braapdaddy]

Breaker bar and lots of force

 

[TheLastWord]

Breaker bar and lots of force

Nope.

See post #15 from someone works with this everyday. A good impact and good socket is the way to go. Start with minimum setting and increase if needed, be patient. Let the tool do the work. Short bursts of power trumps brute force here.
.

 

[Exhaustgases]

In that photo that is such a bad design. Must have be a high paid engineer with a fancy multimillion dollar cad system, that figured that out.
First off the raised area should be on the other side because you would never get all the fluid out of that pan since that hump allows a puddle to form about that same height actually the nut makes it even deeper. The nut should have been welded around the full circumference so it would not break away for any reason. That is the reason they stopped making them with a drain I would surmise. Just more thoughtless engineering in todays automobiles.