Well I have myself in a predicament. I drained the trans fluid in my XK8 and went to unscrew the fill bolt. The 8mm hex would not fit in, and a 7mm was too small. So I fit a torx bit in there and it fit fine. I went to turn it and it stripped the head on the fill bolt. I know it stripped it pretty good because small pieces of metal fell out, and my torx bit is just fine. I'm guessing an easy out may do the trick, though I really don't think I can get a drill up there even if I get the exhaust off.

Any help greatly appreciated as I now have a Jag in the driveway that is not driveable. :/

 

I think you will need an extractor. What tool can you fit in there? What about a drill with a long shaft (like 10") or a hammer in extractor bolt that can use a hand tool?

I'm sorry this happened, it's basically my MO for this type of junk to happen to me.

 

Thanks for the quick response. After I drop the exhaust I can possibly get a flex shaft dremel in there, though I don't think extractors come in dremel size shafts. I did just purchase a flex shaft for the drill, but I'll need a good angle and pressure to get through the plug, which, drilling through metal may not be possible.

The other (and easiest) option I may have is to carefully measure the oil that came out and refill with new oil from the transmission cooler line under the hood. That makes me a bit nervous because I would be assuming the oil was at the correct capacity to begin with.

Worst case scenario I need to drop the rear of the trans to get to the bolt, though I've never had it out and I don't onow if it will rock back or I would need to drop the entire trans to get to it.

 

Don't ya' just love it when a plan comes together?
I wondered if a nut could be welded to it, but it's in an aluminium casting.

Perhaps one of these would do the trick:



They're available in multiple sizes

Hex Head Multi-Spline Screw Extractors - 522/532 Series - Tools - IRWIN TOOLS

If you drill through then there's a chance that some flakes will end up in the trans.

If your luck is like mine then the other cars will all be blocked in behind it..

Good luck,
Mike

 

This is not a good situation! I would try the easy out / extractor first then get another plug to put in.

 

I have a flex bit for my drill and mine is useless (should have bought the dewalt). The problem is it won't hold the bit securely.

 

This happened to me once. I took a cold chisel and made a little notch on the side of the plug. Then used the notch as a place to put the chisel as a hit it on the plug in a counterclockwise direction. After you get ot out get a new one or I might have an extra, I will have to look.

 

If you attempt to use a chisel be sure you do not damage the opening for an easy out or extractor.

 

I'm not good at explaining. I don't use the chisel at the center but on outer edge of plug. I made the first notch on the edge and put the chisel in that notch then hit it counterclockwise to break it loose then it will turn by hand the rest of the way.

 

Like this!!!!!!



bob

 

+ on the chisel, it's quick and works well.

 

I use an air chisel but I have a long barrel air hammer with a VERY controllable trigger.
You need to 'finesse' the plug from the threaded hole. I also have a pile of those 'chiselled' plugs in a bucket of scrap metal in my shop. I keep new ones in stock.

A hand chisel might be more controllable if you don't use air tools everyday.

bob

 

Thank you all for all of the great replies and suggestions! I think any of the ways mentioned would probably work well. The most difficult part of the entire thing is that there is so little space to work in. My concerns with an extractor, as Michael mentioned, was that there was a good probability that metal shards would get into the transmission case. Seeing that I did not order a transmission pan/gasket/torx screws, etc. it did not seems like it would be the best option at the moment. After all, I had wanted this to be a quick and painless fluid change.

Michael, I did not know they made bits like the one you pictured. I think that would be a very viable option and possibly fairly easy.

I really like the idea of cutting a notch and using a chisel. Come to think of it, I have used that trick in the past at least once, but it didn't cross my mind for this. Great suggestion.

Fortunately I did not park in a way to block everyone in, but I did block everyone out. Thinking it would be a quick job, I took up the entire driveway and blocked the other car out of the garage. Of course, as fate would have it, while working on the car it tried to rain, and being in the driveway because of the needed slope for when I drove up on ramps in order to be level, didn't have a covering. I was able to get the top up in time.

It seemed like today was one of those days that whatever I touched went wrong. Some days are like that I suppose. It can always be worse is what I tell myself. I disconnected the upper trans cooler line and attempted to fill from there. I actually thought I could use the sucking action of the transmission pump to get the fluid in the case. Well I didn't put two and two together and realized too late (after I started the car) that the transmission pump will also pump fluid out of the transmission cooler at the same time. I thought I had read of a forum member using that trick, but now that I think about it, I believe he replaced fluid in one line and caught the exiting fluid and ran it until the new fluid came out the other end. My experiment was short lived and after some transmission fluid cleanup, I reverted to slowly hand filling into the cooler line with a funnel and a tube.

I measured the fluid I drained and added a bit extra from my transmission fluid spill (drained 4 quarts and added another 1/3 of a quart). After everything was cleaned up and put back together, I took it for a test drive.

The reason for all of this madness was because the transmission began to downshift a bit hard around a certain turn in town in the last two weeks, with the usual chirps. After the test drive it seems to be a little better, but I do plan on driving it for a bit and draining and adding more fluid. I will re-address the stripped plug when I get to that point, if need be. I saw there was a forum member or three that had filled their transmission fluid and/or had added a fluid additive from the transmission cooler lines, so I know this method of filling can work. I also do need to perform a hard battery reset to clear the transmission adaptations and I will most likely reflash the TCM with my dealer software to see if that helps.

Thank you again for all the responses, you guys are a great help and a wealth of information.

As a side note, I did finally install my tow receiver last weekend so I will hopefully have a write up on that posted soon.

 

No you were clear! Just wanted to be sure it was received the way it was intended..

 

I did the same thing, stripped the fill bolt. I ended up using the same type of extractor as shown in post #4. I got a set of them of my local Advance Auto. Just used a socket on the extractor and the fill bolt was out in one minute. I bought a new one on Ebay.

 

Well, upon your suggestions, I bought the Irwin extractor set (under $50 on Amazon) and two more plugs over nighted to the local Jag dealer for $28 (one extra for when I do the XJ8). I went a little small on the first go around with the extractor bit, so I moved one up and it bit hard. I would highly recommend that Irwin set, those bits are tough little things. I took a short breaker on a wrench bar and ended up slightly bending the wrench! I ended up not using the breaker bar and using a hammer instead to tap the wrench so as to loosen the plug. That plug was in there good! About 1.3 quarts of transmission fluid drained out of the fill port.

I connected the VCM and laptop to monitor the fluid temperature. I played around a little bit to see how close you need to be with ZF's refill guidelines, as I was a bit skeptical of them. I used these as a guide:

Jaguar 6HP26 - 6HP28 Transmission fluid level procedures: Genuine ZF Parts

It was cloudy here and the outside temp was around 60-62F. The transmission oil temp read 18C with the engine off, so a little warmer than outside but it could have been because I moved the car onto the ramps.

Just to test, I started the car with the fill plug in and ran through the gears immediately, so oil temp was around 20C. I pulled the fill plug and filled the transmission pan via an HDX pump garden sprayer and a small tube until it began to drip out (about 1.7 quarts), capped it again and waited until it was between 30-35C and again ran through the gears. I pulled the plug at 35C and it was still dripping out, not much more than when the transmission was cold. I let it continue to drip until it reached 40C and then capped it and tightened it the best I could. It was a drip the whole time, no stream of oil running out.

Jandreu's idea of using a ratchet with the attachments plus an 8mm wrench worked very well as seen in this thread:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...y-tips-149505/

I didn't need any gloves for the hot exhaust, as I could reach the cap well enough with the wrenches. Another thread I found helpful was this:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ics-faq-30991/

Overall the procedure wasn't bad after getting the fill plug unstuck. I thought I would have less time to check the fluid and recap it, but I think I ran the car a good 10 minutes or so in order to reach 40C, and finished the job at 43C.

The oil was pretty dirty, definitely time to change it. I did spill some the other day, so I didn't have an exact measurement, but I ended up putting in an extra .5 quart today on top of what I had in there previously to fill it properly. I don't know if the original level was correct to begin with either.

In ending, I didn't see much of a difference when the oil was cold or warm as far as filling goes. There is however a big difference when you run the transmission through the gears, as it sucks up a lot of the oil so you can place more oil in the pan.

It's nice to have peace of mind knowing it was done correctly, but I don't know if I'd be quite so OCD about it on the next go around.

Thank you again for all of your help!

 

Good to hear they worked out for you.

You can take solace from the fact that it should be easier for the next man in:- particularly as that will likely be you

The extractor design looks like it would work well on the fill plug's little cousins that hold the transmission sump on.

Mike