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17mm Transmission Plug 'tool'

57545754If you're not kickin' up dust, you're collectin' it!
As part of my first spring awakening of the cat I wanted to change the transaxle fluid, but a light went off - I better not crank off the drain plug until I'm sure the fill plug will come out first - so, now I had a simple objective - get the fill plug off. But with What???

Forums tell me it's a 17mm hex head socket - I tried all of the auto parts stores and 16mm was as big as they went :-(

I searched the web and to get a $4 socket from an e-shop on the west coast was going to cost me $25 after shipping and taxes - I have too much Scotch in me to do something like that, I'll gladly pay for a quality tool, but I won't pay obscene shipping charges when they could use the postal service for around $2 instead of UPS for almost $20!!!

Back to the forums and there was a suggestion of using a bolt with a 17mm head and two nuts locked together. Guess what, for $1.44 including tax (plus a vice and a good amount of cranking/binding force) I had the tool I needed.

For those wanting to do the same, it's the M10 bolts at Home Depot (or your favourite hardware store), go for as short a bolt as you can, mine ended up too long to use a ratchet on it, so I ended up using a wrench ... a shorter bolt may allow a ratchet to get into the space available.

A couple of shots ...

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57545754If you're not kickin' up dust, you're collectin' it!
Proof of success (if you look close at the left and right of the plug, you can see that at some point, someone must have used vice grips to go at it, the top 3 threads are crushed on both sides - the plug doesn't sit that far in, so it isn't a problem, just looks ratty) ...

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57545754If you're not kickin' up dust, you're collectin' it!
quote:
FWIW, your local Kragen/Checker/Schucks carries what you need as a VW/BMW drain plug tool for about $5:


Hi Garth, yeah, the real thing is inexpensive if I could only find one - we don't have those auto stores you've mentioned here in the great white north - at least I've never seen one around my neck of the woods. I've tried all the local shops (Napa, PartsSource (they had up to 16mm and that was it), Canadian Tire, Karbelt, Sears ...) and no one had it (as soon as I mentioned volkswagen, they rolled their eyes and made some comment about crazy european tool sizes). The VW dealership wouldn't sell me one, said to try Snap-On and MAC. A local tool shop could order one, but it would be 3" long and cost $16, so it was either order over the web and pay $20 for shipping, or do the McGyver thing Cool

Next time I'm in the U.S. I'll hit one of the stores and grab a half dozen to share with the guys up here.
J Joe6pack (Guest)
Ha Ha - That's funny. I did the same thing earlier in the week. In fact, I almost posted about it. I went to my local Ace to see if they had a 17mm hex socket, but they didn't. A buddy of mine works at the Ace and told me of this trick. It actually works a little better if you can tack weld the nut in place. As long as your plugs aren't too stuck it will work.

I wound up having buying a tool anyway as I couldn't get the bottom plug out. It was in there pretty tight and the nuts rounded (I didn't have a fancy wrench like the one in the picture). I got it at NAPA. It set me back a cool $16 and won't work on the side plug without grinding. They didn't have it in stock at the store, but had it by the afternoon.
markcharltonmarkcharltonOld enough to know better and still young enough not to care. My '71 Pantera
While waiting for my ZF plug tool to arrive (years back), I headed off to my local Home Depot in search of an immediate solution and found this pipe tool (sold as a 1/2" internal wrench) made by BrassCraft. It has a 17mm hex handle. 2 minutes with a hack saw and I had the perfect tool for use with a narrow wrench. I think it cost $10.

Mark

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