Anyone installed a drain plug in the tranny pan of this body style truck??? I did in my 95 and it really made fluid drops much easier... just wondering if theres room in the pan somewhere....

 

I welded a 1/4" thread o let onto my pan;

 

Anyone use one of the thread in types and have good luck.....I did it on my 95 but I don't remember if it leaked or not....

B&M 80250 - B&M Drain Plug Kits - Overview - SummitRacing.com

 

Too bad the Mag-hytec pans are so expensive ($230). I'd much rather go with one that was designed with the plug vs adding a 6 dollar thread in one. My luck is rather crappy, so I'd want to limit my risk for a large scale leak.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking of syphoning trans fluid out of the dip stick tube, to simplify (limit the amount of fluid I dump on my driveway) the fluid change.

 

I'm a pipefitter/welder by trade and run a fab shop.I tig welded that thread o let onto a new pan I bought from my local Ford dealer.The pan was $23.00 plus tax.Go buy a new pan,a 1/4" thread o let,a 1/4" plug,and find a local welding shop to have the work done.Most shops usually have a minimum shop rate,probably $15-$25,for small jobs like this.It took me about 5 minutes to weld mine.

 

That looks good. I did a similar job on a TH350 in a '76 GMC van years ago. Because the van was always parked at the curb, I placed the hole at the rear corner of the pan. I took the pan off and cleaned it, then drilled the hole. I then started brazing a nut to the hole. During this process, there was a loud pop. I turned off the heat, took my dark glasses off and looked at the pan. The stresses in the pan from being formed had reacted to the heat and drilled hole, and the whole corner had suddenly cracked. Cracks radiated out from the drilled hole. But here's the wild part - every crack was perfectly filled with braze and the nut was brazed solidly to the pan. I went ahead and repainted it, put a thick nylon washer on the nut and screwed in a bolt. The pan held without leaking the rest of the time I had the van, and for all I know is still out there somewhere. Today I would know that the drilled hole created a stress riser and I would have had to anneal the pan or at least heat the whole pan up gradually instead of just throwing the heat to the one place. Actually, I would have it welded like the OP! But back then I was doing some brazing and got pretty good with it.