frozen/stuck axle housing plug

[almoore]

I have a 1989 Chevrolet Silverado 1/2 ton 2WD reg.cab. I was trying to get the fill plug out of the differential & found that it is frozen in place. I have tried penetrating oil, heat from a propane torch, heating the plug to where I could drive a torx bit into the hot metal & letting it cool to the torx & even a coal chisel & nothing has worked to even make it turn a slight bit. I have asked a couple of people about an extractor/e-z out set to get the thing out. I really need help especially since I have already drained the oil & replaced the cover gasket with a new one trying to clean up the bell housing where it had leaked before I bought the truck.
Any ideas that will get results fast are greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Chris142]

Is that the one that uses a 3/8 square? Did you clean the grease and dirt out of it before you tried to remove it?

If you cant get it out you should have an axle vent somewhere on the housing. Look up the capacity and fill it through the vent hole.

An old off road trick is to fill a zip lock bag with the oil, put the oil filled bag into the housing, then put the cover on. When the gears turn the bag will break open and spill the oil into the housing. The bag will get ground to pieces and wont hurt anything. So I'm told.

 

[labman]

Have you tried hammering on the plug?

 

[Petrou]

your probably gonna need an actual torch. like oxy/acetalene. a hammer and a 3/8 breaker bar. any way. heat the area around the plug, slowly getting it red, not glowing but red then try breaking the nut loose after a couple of smacks with a hammer. if needed keep take a squirt bottle with some ice cold water and after your done heating the area around the plug squirt the plug and only the plug then twist it out. the cold water will shrink the plug the area around the plug will still be expanded.

 

[c3po]

I had the same problem on my El Camino, it had the 3/8 square on it, I sprayed some PB Blaster on it after cleaning the grease and dirt out of it.

I could not get it off, remembered that I had a 1/2 breaker bar and put a 1/2 inch adapter to a 3/8 and it came right off.

I had already picked up a 1/2 inch plug from Russell who is now owned by Edelbrock. I used an Allen Head wrench to put it on.

I lubed the threads in the diff where the plug goes in as well as the threads on the plug.

I then went ahead and put some RTV around the plug so no grime, dirt, or anything else could get on the threads, it came off so easy the next time I needed to change the Diff Fluid.

Maybe this guy needs to pickup a diff cover where you can pour the fluid into the diff cover, I think Summitt and Jegs sells them.

 

[jmac]

Can't we move all these topics that don't belong here to the proper forum?