I was going in the same direction as kr98664 is.....a liberal amount of Pb Blast, a good wrench on the plug, upward pressure on it then walk away. Come back a few hours later and give it some more penetrating oil and check the upward pressure. Adjust if necessary.

 

Also, since you said you're just gettin into this hobby, can't underscore enough to use the right tool for the job. I scraped by literally for years using whatever I could get my hands on, usually resulting in bloody knuckles and a rounded off bolt.

Now I have a set of these huge 14" of Bonney wrenches and a 2ft breaker bar for jobs like these. Saves me a lot of suffering.

 

Interesting, I'd never heard of the stuff:

Freeze-Off® Super Penetrant, 11.5 Wt Oz - 05002


I'm going to have to try some. I've always been hesitant to apply heat on the vehicle. It would be too easy to accidentally start a fire using a torch.

 

if you get mad enough at it that may be a good thing.....let it burn! LOL
Dave - - - -

 

One more thought:

From underneath the truck, look up at the sheet metal hump over the transmission. Is is a separate piece that can be removed for access to the top of the transmission? My '84 has a removable panel like this, but am not sure if this applies to all years.

If your truck has this big access panel, you can dial WAY back on your worry level. Say you somehow manage to totally booger up the fill plug. You snap it off partway, leaving a gaping hole and the remnants won't come out. Time for a full panic? Nah, just clean up the crater and seal it with some epoxy or whatever. Peel back the carpet, remove the access panel, and remove the entire top cover (with shift lever) from the transmission. Take the top cover to your workbench and see if you can figure out why the shift lever won't come loose. If that's totally boogered, too, find a good replacement on eBay or similar. Fill the transmission oil from the top, install your new shift cover, and you're done. Next time you need to check the oil level, you shouldn't have any trouble removing the shift lever from the replacement cover.

That's your worst case scenario, short of accidentally setting the truck on fire with a torch fighting with that plug. Use that previously mentioned freeze spray. Catch up on Matlock. No need to panic...

 

My uncle runs a junkyard and autoshop. I don't think he even gas a can of penetrating fluid on his property. He solely swears the heat of a torch is infinitely better. I don't think a small propane torch is going to do enough on a case and plug that mean.

Judging by the weight of the plug and that its square I doubt you would strip it with an open end wrench that fits properly. Add a pipe onto a wrench make sure the wrench is on fully and use the leverage to get it out. At some point you may hit enough force to damage something else who knows....

Also doesn't anyone remember off hand if the PTO port bolts go right through the case? If so maybe he could pull one of those and fill it from the top of painfully slow with an oil squirter then put the bolt back in with a bit of sealer.

 

Thanks again for more ideas and suggestions.

I'm not in terrible shape here. It's more about the principle of the thing at this point. I wanted to teach myself how to do routine maintenance and change all the fluids, that's why I'm doing it. The oil probably doesn't NEED to be changed, it's not a daily driver, and the truck does have the plate on the floor of the cab so I could remove the top cover of the tranny if I needed to. I haven't drained the oil, so I could drop the truck and drive it away right now with no problem. I just hate to give up. I certainly don't want to make more problems for myself by busting something though.

The ultimate plan for the truck is to swap it from an inline 6 to a 351w, and when I do that I was planning on rebuilding the tranny anyway while things are apart. I could deal with the plug when I take it out for rebuild, if I get that far.

I think what I'll try is getting some of that Freeze Off, putting pressure on the plug with my jack, and leaving it there for awhile. Can't hurt anything. Come back each evening for a week and smack it a couple of times with a hammer while putting more freeze off in it and tightening the jack, if I can. If, at the end of a week, the plug STILL hasn't moved any, then I guess I'll either take it to a shop, fill it from the top cover, or forget changing the fluid altogether and just wait for the rebuild.

 

You're a genius! You just gave me a (hopefully) good idea. Look at the picture of the PTO port in post #10. If the regular fill plug never budges, you could remove the PTO cover and modify that near the top. Drill a hole and add some kind of through fitting/plug as a new fill port. Any modifications would be done to the cover only, not the actual transmission. If the transmission is ever removed for a rebuild, remove the plug at that time and replace the PTO cover with an unmodified one.

 

" Brute force and ignorance"


Only way to fly forsure!

 

Worst case Ontario, assuming the PTO bolts go all the way through and the plug won't come out.... The top PTO bolt is slightly higher than the fill plug.

1.Jack the drivers side of truck up a bit (put the oil on a slant to compensate for the bolt being higher)
2. Pull the top PTO bolt out
3. Fill tranny through shifter (see above where I described how to remove that bugger) until it pours out the hole. (Or use a oil can pump thing)
4. Lower the truck to get oil away from the threads.
5. Apply sealant/silicone to the bolt and install.

I think it would work fine as long as you verify the bolt doesn't leak after. It beats no fill plug.

Sometimes you have to be creative...

 

they also sell a pto coverwith a drain plug

 

Is that close to Parry Sound? Gets kinda cold up there...

 

I would put the truck up on ramps, chock the wheels so it will not roll (parking brake too if it works and in gear) and get a pipe wrench with a cheater pipe like was suggested, and start cranking. Worst thing I see happening is the plug breaks off.

If it is that tight, I am surprised he doesn't have a leak there. If you overtighten these plugs, the way they are designed they can split and crack the trans case. Then you have a leak.

 

At some point I'd be worried about cracking or damaging the case somehow. Maybe if OP has an impact and can find a square socket online or something that might shake it loose.

Kr98664 you from parry sound? Were still getting a lot of snow here in ottawa

 

It'll come out. But that little combination wrench ain't gonna get it.

I rebuilt a Pontiac 3.8 one time and when I had the engine out I could NOT get the front crankshaft balancer bolt out. I had the engine on an engine stand and using thick galvanized cheater pipe I would make a go at it and I really got scared a few times. Every thing was so loaded up I just knew at any moment the whole engine stand with the engine was gonna flip over, or the cheater pipe would snap and I would come to laying on the floor covered in blood impaled by a piece of something. I kept trying to no avail over the course of a few days. I remembered times when i would be at a particular junkyard struggling to get a part off and a Hispanic worker would always tell me "you don't have enough huevos cabron!!". And that ribbing would provide the extra strength needed LMAO.
So I still had this harmonic balancer bolt that wouldn't budge. I went down to a shop and inquired about renting or borrowing a 3/4" impact. They said I could but for whatever reason I didn't. I went home and made another go at the cheater pipe and again had everything loaded up including me to the breaking point and then....I felt it give just a hair.