rusnak

My 915 transaxle drain plug is rounded and frozen in place. I've been using the bottom cover with the little fork on the backside as a drain. Problem now is that the gasket is leaking all of that expensive Swepco gear oil, and making a mess.

So, my friend Gabe suggests to me (he gave me a new Porsche gasket for that cover on the bottom) to drill and tap a new drain, and plug it with a copper or Al crush washer and a bolt. This sounds like a great solution, and is totally doable if I can find a large flat area, or machine a flat surface on the bottom side (Sorry, no pics yet, the parts are not with me right now).

I can post pics a little later. This sounds like it should work, right?

ivangene

OK

so I guess my question is cant the "bad plug" just be drilled out and replaced rather than making a new hole and running the risk of having one of us seeing your car on the rack, pointing and laughing

Sorry could not resist the last part

rusnak

I'm not too keen to try to drill out the old plug. I showed it to a machinist, and he was not reassuring about the prospects of a clean extraction. He might have been COA, but I wanted a little bit more than "you can open her up if the drain plug won't come out".

ivangene

my advice, get another machinist

got a pic of the stuck plug? Is it a tapered hole or a crush washer? If crush washer once the head of the plug is gone there is nothing holding the plug in (no force) Tap (mallet) inwards to release of threads and it should unscrew with fingers

is the tranny out?

(I need to open a shop )

theiceman

Give us a pic of the carnage Russ..i am still going fo the "weld a nut to it" solution

rusnak

OK, will do guys, thanks!!!!

Most people are scared to death when I answer their question "what's it out of?"

I say what it is, and no one wants to even touch it.

Ed Hughes

I'd say you'd be playing with fire, unless you welded a boss on, then you're drilling, which all brings you back to finding the right person to extract the old.

rusnak

The well sides of the plug are gone. It's recessed into the Al case.

Pete suggested using my best, most expensive easy-out. I thought at the time that going "all in" on a new easy-out was probably money well spent.

theiceman

wimps ...

this exact issue happened in our saturday morning club. I htink the method i proposed was the one universaly adopted by our group .. but come to think of it i was buying the coffee ... anywho.... not sure what became of it .... will find out. the consensus was that tack welding a nut on to the plug woule give something to gt a hold of and the heat transfered during thr weld would assist in the removal .. all sounds great ..... in theory ....

theiceman

nothing impresses a machinist more than having to remove a broken hardened steel easy out . Rememeber the harder the steel , the more brittle.

Amber Gramps

found this on google. The plug is way down the page

http://porsche.wikidot.com/how-to:po...rial-part-viii

Personally I would try to remake or reshape the six sided hole in a larger size. If it is 17mm or 19mm I'd mark with a sharpie where my six points would be and I'd hit them with my dremel until the next size wrench fit in the hole. bottom tap easy out would be my next thought.

race911

I've extracted 2 or 3 over the years. But I think only one was in the car. Used the biggest EZ-out available, and heat. Might have been a mag case unit.

I don't see where the second drain plug gets you. You still have to drill through the case, thus you'll have non-magnetic metal shavings to deal with from the drill + the tap. (Unless you try it with a self threading plug.)

I'll go way out on a limb here and question whether a really, really good 17mm hex + impact gun might do the trick.

rusnak

There's a plate on the bottom of the 915 case with a fork on the back side.

The gasket is bad (I've been using it to drain the the oil), so I have the plate off now. I'm thinking about drilling the plate for a new plug while it's off of the case, and tapping the hole with threads.

race911

I'd probably continue to use the plate-as-drain then. Not much doesn't drain when you remove that. You're proficient enough to know how to get it back lined up with the shift rods. How often does ~30K come up where you need to change the oil, anyway? The gasket's about a dime.

rusnak

Yup, I got the gasket for free.

Here's a parts diagram of the cover: