[6pack] Removing gearbox fill plug

[John VanNorman]

Question for the group.  My father made the classic mistake of
draining his 6's transmission fluid in the gearbox before removing the
fill plug, and of course he is now having problems removing the fill
plug.  Here are the highlights of his efforts:

1) He tried to remove the fill plug with a regular wrench with no
success (it wouldn't budge)

2)  He bought the special wrench from The Roadster Factory for the
plug, but when he pulled hard on it using a piece of pipe on it as a
"cheater bar", it just rounded off the square edges of the plug and
distorted the corners in the square opening on the wrench.

3)   A Gator Grip socket didn't hold at all.

4)  He tried the one of the sockets you use for extracting stripped
nuts (the type that digs into the nut), but it just rounded the edges
of the plug a bit more and then slipped.

5)  He then cut a deep groove in the head of the plug with a Dermal
Tool, and tried to "unscrew" the plug with a screwdriver socket on a
ratchet.  The socket fits into the groove fairly well, but slips out
when I try to turn the ratchet with some force.

So, he is looking for fresh ideas.  His last resort is drilling it
out, but he is afraid of metal shavings getting into the gearbox.  Any
suggestions or tips?

John V
1974 1/2 TR6