Stuck rear diff filler plug

[Jersey 93 Ty]

I thought I had a simple one tonight. After a week or so of near constant rain, this afternoon/evening the weather suddenly turned wonderful. Of course, I felt the need to put some work into a truck as soon as that happened. I brought my '84 M1009 over to my apartment, pulled the rear diff cover to drain the government fluid, and started cleaning things up. I made good use of my new set of Craftsman gasket scrapers (worth their weight in gold!) and wiped down the cover. Nothing looked out of place, and no stray shards were stuck to the magnet.

Unfortunately, I found out when I tried to pull the fill plug that the 3/8" square opening in the plug is now 5-sided. Soon afterwards I managed to run out of light, so the truck is spending the night with the differential cover sitting on top of the spare tire in the cargo area.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to try some more to force that plug out... which will probably require a replacement plug. If all else fails, I'll probably leave that plug in place and add a new one to the diff cover or something similar. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

 

[mkcoen]

You might try applying a little heat to the plug before attempting to take it out. No matter what, if it's already damaged you should plan on replacing it anyway.

 

[acmunro]

I had the same thing happen on one of my civilian trucks. I tried hitting it with a hammer - Punches, chiesels, easy outs and nothing worked. The plug seemed really soft. I used my mig welder and an old bolt. Stuck the bolt into the square opening welded it and turned it out. The heat from the weld helped. Good Luck.

 

[acmunro]

One other thing to add - You could always estimate the amount of fluid you need for a fill, and add it through the vent tube until you can deal with the stuck plug.

 

[Westech]

been there done that with the vent line... takes a while but it works.. the rear of the truck will take 2.5 quarts of gear oil. I just did mine last week. you put 2.5 quarts and your good to roll.

 

[Jersey 93 Ty]

That's an awesome idea with vent line... that's gonna save the day for me guys. I'll head out to start working on it right after I finish poking around SS. Thanks.

 

[Jersey 93 Ty]

The vent line worked great. As it happened, I was planning on using the hand pump that AMSOil sells for use with their bottles, and right in the box was an adaptor that plugged directly in line. I probably could have gone with a small funnel and worked it that way, but this turned out very nicely. Man I'm glad I posted on here... Otherwise I'd still be under the truck cursing at it instead of done and showered!

 

[acmunro]

Glad it worked out for you.