Stuck engine oil drain plug

[Brett Dikeman]

At 11:49 PM +0100 3/7/02, Eyvind Spangen wrote:
>The engine oil drain plug in my '90 200TQ20v is completely stuck. I
>guess it's the combination of alloy pan and steel plug. I just bought
>the car and now want to to the first oil change. Somebody have messed
>with the plug before, there's nothing left to use a wrench on.. Any
>good ideas on how I should remove it?
>
>I have a new drain plug here, $15 for a single plug!! :-(



Shame on you Eyvind, you should have posted to the 200q20v list, we
could have set you right on this ASAP :-)

Its extremely common on the 20v/20vts; the plug is enormous for some
reason, and despite being bathed in oil, just loves to get REALLY
hard to break loose(the infamous Tom Chudzinski once told me I was
tightening the plug too much.)

My car, fortunately, has a rather large "innie" plug installed.  Took
me weeks to find the right allen key socket when I first bought the
car.  That's not to say I didn't try other means:

http://frank.mercea.net/~brett/pics/objects/half_of_bolt.jpg

that's a carriage bolt that I managed to twist and snap, trying to
get the plug out. In the same directory is a picture of the other
half, still clamped tight in the jaws of the vice grips.

Those who have "outies"("Hey, son, I say, I made a funny, "outies",
Audis" -Foghorn Leghorn in an german car shop) might consider either
installing a Fumoto or a "innie" along with getting the right allen
key socket; I've never had a problem since I started using a 3 foot
pipe on the end of the half inch drive with that lovely socket :-)
Damn fumoto valve leaks like a sieve though(I am thoroughly
unimpressed with it, sorry folks; its a neat idea, but the thread
size is wrong or something.)

As for getting the existing plug off, use a mototool or die grinder
and grind two reasonably parallel, flat surfaces on the bolt angled
like this:
front of car / / back of car

so you can slip an adjustable wrench on, tighten it down like hell,
and then break it loose using a couple of good blows from a
rubber/plastic mallet.

You can also try to grind it down on all 6 sides a little until the
next size down socket fits, but that would probably take a long, long
time and be pretty tricky.

Brett
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