Welding on the Transfercase

I have a stuck fill plug on my transfercase. Ive tried many days of PB blaster and had no luck. The head of the plug is stripped so. I think my last resort is to weld a nut on top of it. I read somewhere on here that if you weld on your truck you could fry some of your electronics? How do I prevent that?

 

take the negative wire off at the battery

 

unplug battery

 

Have you tried any stripped bolt remover tools? I've had good luck with them. Of course if you have a welder handy...

 

Have you tried a pipe wrench

 

My new go to for removing stuck plugs after all other attempts fail is welding on a low cost wrench then throwing every thing away .

i find that much easier then trying to weld on nuts

So many vehicles come to me with all kinds of rounded hardware

 

Better than pb blaster is 50/50 acetone transmission fluid. Can you get a vise grip on it?

 

This is how I got this stripped stupid E-Torx bolt off of my front differential when I was swapped the ADD axle tube and jack shaft for a Manual Hun axle tube without the ADD actuator. I tried welding nuts to it to no avail, presumably because the steel was Zinc plated or something.

I ended up welding a Chinesuium 1/2 inch Harbor Freight “dropped forged” wrench to it and it worked perfectly.

 

How? You could only get a 1/4 of a turn before you hit diff with the wrench. I don't doubt you, but I'm failing to comprehend some aspect of this.

 

But once you turn it ccw any at all you can cut the wrench of & turn it on out.

 

Once I got it loose, I cut the wrench off and turned the remenants of the bolt off with my fingers. The wrench was just to have enough leverage to break it loose.

 

Did you have to take any steps to not damage your electronics? Or can you weld without worrying about that? This is my main concern. I will prob get a cheap wrench from harbor freight and give that a try. Thanks guys.

 

The differential wasn't attached to the truck so I didn't have any issue with that. If you're really worried, I would say un-plug the ECU but that's really unnecessary. As long as you unhook the battery you should be fine. Muffler shops weld on vehicles all the time without even unhooking the battery.

 

I have welded on mine several times without unhooking the battery. But just to be safe unhook it. It takes like 45 secs

 

What can Happen is if you have a Poor Work connection Welding Current could Flow into the ECM seeking a path to complete the circuit.

When your welding your own Stuff if you cook your ecm you can chose what to do.

Welding on Customers vehicles if your dumb and fry one your replacing with New if you can still get one.

Be safe disconnect the negative battery terminal

 

I had the best exhaust guy when I still lived in WA. Dude only welded with an oxy torch and could weld overhead with the torch and wire in one hand and his lighter and cigarette in the other. Only ever paid him in beer and sandwiches too, dude did really solid work, bent all his own pipe an everything. Been there forever and was basiclally retired anyway.

I suppose my point here is if you have a torch to heat up the metal that can help as well.

 

While heat can`t hurt the Aluminum case acts like a giant heat sink till one gets things hot enough .

Damage to bearings is a possible .

Then some people and a torch can be a bad mix under a vehicle

 

So I welded a pice of steel to it. Took awhile cuz the frame wasn't grounding it good enough, eventually grounded to the Transfer case itself, huge difference. Put some big welds on and the heat from that did most of the work, broke free real easy. New problem is the plug I had sitting on the shelf is too big. Got replacement comin snail mail. I did disconnect the battery to be safe. All electronics seem to be ok.

 

Glad you got it figured out. The transfer case (and the rest of the drivetrain) is isolated from the frame by rubber mounts with minimal steel contact. That’s why the frame was not providing a good ground point. In general, you want the ground to be close to the work point to reduce resistance in the system and also prevent damage to components that may be in the “path of least resistance” (i.e. your ECU)