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DAE lose a whole night to a stripped drain plug on a 20 year old snowblower?
So last Tuesday I figured I would do a quick tune up on my old Craftsman snowblower, you know, oil change, new plug, maybe clean the carb. The oil drain plug was seized solid. I hit it with PB Blaster and let it sit for an hour while I did other stuff, no luck. Then I tried a vice grip and rounded the hex head completely off. At this point it is 11pm and I am standing in my garage in Burlington with a flashlight in my teeth. I ended up having to drill it out, tap new threads, and hunt down a replacement plug at the auto parts store the next morning. The whole thing went from a 30 minute job to about 5 hours spread over two nights. My neighbor Dave came over at one point and just laughed at me. Does anyone else have a trick for stuck drain plugs that does not involve destroying the bolt head?
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jade_butler26d ago
Heat is the move here, not love taps with a wrench. A stuck drain plug on small engines is almost always rust welded in place from years of condensation and old oil. Get a propane torch or even a heat gun and warm the aluminum case around the plug, not the plug itself. The aluminum grows faster than steel so it breaks the bond. Then hit it with candle wax or paraffin while its hot, it wicks into the threads way better than PB Blaster ever will. Let it cool a bit and it should back right out. Also invest in a six point socket instead of twelve point, the twelve point ones are what round off hex heads in the first place.
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