Hot Wrench

Anyone use a heat induction tool to loosen diff drain and fill plugs.

 

Those tools usually have to wrap around the piece to heat up. The plugs on the diff are recessed into it. Might be hard to do so?

 

Tips I’d suggest:

- soak the plugs with penetrating oil the day before, then spray em again prior to work
- a few good taps with a heavy hammer might help to break the plugs free
- make sure you have high quality tools ex: tightly fitting 6pt socket, a 12pt socket is just asking to round the corners off
- with the Allen key make sure theee is no debris in the recess and the key is fully seated/bottomed out before attempting to loosen
- many folks swap out the plug with the allen recess for a plug with a 6pt head on it, many options on Amazon, etc

Here’s what I had to do to get my rear diff drain plug out because it was rounded off:

 

whatd you just tighten it up a bit with excess metal?

mine was a bitch last week i used pb blaster and tapped with hammer and finally got it but i did kind of mess up the plug (because i used a 15/16 and it was tight) but only slightly. i work with skilled mechanics and might replace it next time down the road, but worst case the old cold chisel move these guys love, if not heat. strike with cold chisel straight, then angle flathead or same cold chisel and the remove bolts this way

 

So you talk about and show pics of what you did yet this is on the fill plug. My main concern is the drain plug that sits in the protected piece on the underside of the diff.
I do like the thought of adding material to a rounded fitting.

 

well, yes… for me it was the fill plug that I discovered was rounded. But the solution is transferable to the other plug. Adding a little extra material was a difference maker.

 

Another option: rather than hitting the drain plug directly with a hammer, use a hand impact tool. They are great for breaking free stuck fasteners.

 

I have used one of these many times over the years. It worked great on Phillip-headed motorcycle screws. Mine is about 50 years old.

 

those are great tools. hand impacts. i used by boss snap on one

 

The best tool for this is an impact gun. It's waaaay more effective than a ratchet or wrench on loosening things and not stripping them due to the hammering action- night and day vs smooth application of torque. On the front diff, clean out the hex recess first and use an impact hex socket bit.

The impact driver above is the tool for those Honda rotor phillips screws