Transmission drain plug

I fucked up.
Long story short, it's a new to me truck and I'm servicing all the fluids that need to be changed. Drain plug keeps spinning now and I have a seep or leak around the drain plug. Trying to figure out if I do transmission pan replacement or would flez seal fix it?

Long story, I'm servicing the transmission.
Cracked open the fill, overflow, and drain plugs in that order. Drained the transmission fluid, flipped the drain plug gasket and snugged down the plug in the transmission drain hole, or at least I thought it was just snug. No I didn't use a torque wrench because I am aware of stripping the threads and everything I've read and videos I watched said just snug.
Filled with 4qts of toyota ws and completed the temp check and opened overflow drain to a watch the atf flow turn into a small trickle. Wiped everything down and thought everything is good and dry.

Then I buy a torque wrench because it's on sale and decide let me just go check my fill and offer flow plugs since I know I can torque to spec now.

I am trying to unscrew my transmission drain plug and it just keeps spinning and doesn't come off. I reverse the turning direction to tighten the bolt because I'm thinking maybe I just had a mini stroke and I will try this again. The drain plug keeps spinning and doesn't tighten or loosen to come off. My bottom lip is quivering from fear and I think I've over torque my drain plug or some how cross threads.

Here is a picture of how much fluids comes out in 12 hours


I got a ling distance drive in 2 weeks.
Maybe I should refill with with atf and temp check every week?
Maybe I should order new pan, plug, washer, and gasket And just try to replace the tranny drain plug... See if that works and if not then change out the pan?
Or try flex seal, can make a boat with a door maybe can seal atf behind a god damn drain plug.

I'm thinking to change the pan but I've never done it before lol

 

Replacing my transmission pan and filter was easier to do than changing the original oil pan and more fun honestly. I used the apremium brand on Amazon and it’s worked fine you just need a good gasket for the check plug.

 

Im not sure how much meat is in the tranny pan..might could tap it up one size.

 

Ditto. The amount of bolts holding up the pan was a pain (like on any other vehicle) but swapping out the pan was simple enough and gave peace of mind over a partially stripped drain plug hole.

 

Replacing the pan is way easy. 20 bolts…keep in mind though that when replacing them they torque to 39 INCH/lbs.

considering how much rebuilding your transmission would cost I would 100% replace the pan and not even consider infomercial sealers.

 

You just have to replace the pan. This will always haunt you until you fix it right.

 

Yeh I'm leaning to doing this weekend. Gonna probably make the order from the dealership tonight

Me neither, I wouldn't know how to tell without taking it the bolt which I want to try first, before replacing the pan.

I see so this bolt and pan is definitely stripped even if just partially. I'll try to get the bolt out anyway

Yeh inch pounds lol. I was a guy on YouTube spray his leaky transmission drain plug with flex seal.... Lol

Yeh few hundred dollars and few hours of concentration in exchange for one less thing to worry about is worth it

 

I taped mine out to

$13 M12x1.25 mm Self-Locking Nylon Insert Hex Lock Nuts, Pack of 6

M12x1.25, a fine thread and I used a 27/64 drill bit to drill the hole out. There is plenty of material to do this, just be-careful to drill and tap straight in. In most cases, a finer thread allows for an increase in torque to be applied. In this case, you could safely torque to Toyota's' spec. I view this as an engineering mess-up from thread choice to the material spec of the drain plug.

You may have to cut down a 12x1.25 plug so it doesn't hit the internals.

 

The threads could've already been damaged too

 

I've seen bungs that use a gasket and clamps down on the steel with a nut, but honestly, if you're going to go through that kind of trouble, it's easier and more reliable to just replace the pan - you would have to take the pan off to put the bung in anyway.

 

The trouble with replacing the pan is that you'll end up with the same issue: a coarse thread with not enough thread engagement for the torque spec and soft drain plug threads. If Toyota wanted to use a 10 mm diameter plug, a 1 mm thread pitch would have been a better choice for the amount of thread engagement you have.

 

yet how many thousands of times a week are plugs removed and re-torqued to 15ft/lbs around the world without issue? I’ve done it 3 times myself without issue. If it’s a common failure I’ve just not heard of it.

 

Yes, just replace the pan and go through the fill procedure again.
It's not a bad job. Just DON'T glob RTV on the gasket.
Use none, or just a thin film that you spread on with your finger, I mean, just wet.
And be mindful of the torque on those little bolts.

 

No way I'm going anywhere near 15 lb/ft. That's insane. I dont care what the torque spec is. Look at the size of the bolt, its a baby.

Why do people go to the book on something as mundane as a drain plug? All you have to do is just gently crush the gasket a bit. 15 is like spark plug territory

 

I stripped my transmission drain plug too, a few years ago. Root cause was I used a torque wrench and torqued to spec. I learned the 'reduce torque on wet threads' lesson the hard way. Personally, I don't use the torque wrench on any wet threads anymore, but rather just snug it by hand. I replaced the pan with a new one.

 

Dude I don't even know what unit of measurement an M12 is. If I was alittle more experienced with tapping or fixing my truck then I would probably do this since I would just buy a new plug and shorten the stem. Creative but to much risk for me right now

I said this to myself so I could sleep better that night

Good ol bung hole plug. Yeh I'm just gonna to replace this pan and not fuck up turning the bolts lmao

Yeh same problem but new approach. Don't follow torque specs on transmission drain plug lmao. Maybe I'll just go 100 inch lbs. Or maybe I should not gripped my socket wrench at all and just tried to close the plug with my fingertips on the wrench

It's a common failure if you are me. I'm at 50% success rate with successfully closing my tranny drain plug

Good thing I don't own any rtv or know if the rtv power just yet. Yeh I'm gonna make sure everything dry before I install new pan and gasket.
Is it good idea to wipe mating surface with brake cleaner or just dry towel, before installing?

I think i got ocd and want to not break my truck, so I wanted to stick to the book lol. Also I flipped my crush washer... And now that I think about it, the washer didn't look like a special crush washer. I'll take a picture when I get the plug off.

Yeh this is an expensive lesson learned for me as well... I'm gonna really be mindful about what snug means. Maybe not grip the socket wrench with my whole hand and just use finger tips

 

Sounds like most people covered it already but definitely do not recommend sealant or anything cutting corners. If it was short term and something like the engine where you can monitor levels easily with the dipstick and top off as needed then sure maybe, but the trans is way less accessible and before you know it you've got a blown trans from low fluid.

Also don't bother drilling out, tapping helicoil etc. By the time you spend the money on that stuff and a new drain plug and spend the time doing it (especially if its your first itme drill/tap/helicoiling) and worry about shavings inside the pan I bet you could just replace the pan faster for not much more money. If it was a tough pan to get at or required removing other stuff sure, but its such an easy one with all the bolts right there. IMO it's a good time to replace the ATF filter/strainer inside the pan while it's right in front of you, which a lot of us do if its a higher mileage trans fluid change. Get Toyota parts, the rubber gasket from them is much nicer than messing around with RTV or anything. You'll want a 1/4" torque wrench for the pan bolts and you'll be glad you got it the next time you do a job with low torque values.

 

I was debating whether I should change trans filter.
I don't know if filter was ever changed. I am happy to say fluid was still nice red color when I changed it, and I had driven the truck for 10k miles since purchasing. My truck at 175k miles now and I received no service history with the truck except car fax. And carfax did not specify if transmission fluid was changed, although I saw plenty of engine oil changes recorded.
It doesn't look like much additional cost for transmission filter so I'm considering changing it too.
My only concern is: i learned stories about Flushing the trans risk harm done especially at high miles. Since this will be my 2nd transmission fluid drain and fill in short time, and I will be cleaning magnets, and replacing the trans screen, will I run into the same risk that one might encounter with a Trans flush?

 

No the risk is more from the pressurized flush or if you were already having issues and trying to "fix" it with a flush. A few drain and fills within a short term is actually the recommended way to change it with higher mileage if you're going to do anything. There's quite a few threads on here on it to get lost reading through but that seems to be the consensus and is what I did at 185k. You can even keep the old fluid for a while if you're paranoid like I was.

 

As @Peter603Taco states above, flushing is a totally different beast from drain/fill (even multiple drain/fills). It's not the new fluid, it's the pressure coursing through the system where there normally isn't much pressure that has the potential dislodging years of muck that gets into places it shouldn't.

As far as filter, you're going to be in there anyway. Most of the debate about the filter is if to do it (which requires dropping the pan) or just drain/fill (easier). Most people say that if the debate is between the 2, to just drain and fill because supposedly when people have done a filter swap, there really wasn't much there to worry about.

That being said, SOMETIMES changing the filter can bring its own problems - but I haven't PERSONALLY read about it with Tacos - but I have read about it with the Trailblazer family of SUVs (I had a Buick Ranier as an AWD backup for a few years).