Anyone ever add a drain plug to a torque converter?

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JoePole1

JoePole1

A dude in a B body
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Hey All. My 904 340 style converter has a drain plug in it. Nice. I am running it on a Magnum 360 and knocked the weights off of the converter. No issues there except you cannot drain it while attached to the Magnum flex plate but that is not the issue.
I recently acquired an A999 and there is no drain plug on the L/U converter. I want to flush or at least drain it and this is next to impossible without a drain.
Has anyone ever drilled and tapped a converter for a drain? I'm talking a small 1/4" brass plug. Nothing crazy.
 
Second that- just go slow and don’t let the drill go too deep- use a drill stop of some sort. Easy as eating pie.
 
Careful where you drill! The face is where the clutch plate rides.DONT drill there.drill the outer ring just rear of the radius of the front cover.use a 1/8 pipe plug don’t tap any deeper than needed to get plug at least half way in.Use a Allen head plug.
 
Use a 1/8" NPT plug. You can also drill a 1/8" hole & let the fluid drain. After draining, use a 1/8" pop rivet + silicon to seal the hole.
 
Bewy said:
Use a 1/8" NPT plug. You can also drill a 1/8" hole & let the fluid drain. After draining, use a 1/8" pop rivet + silicon to seal the hole.
Click to expand...
Pop rivet fits nicely but how do you get it to seal? Remove the middle and fill with silicone or just smear it and tap it in? I am assuming you are not using the gun and hammer it in.
 
The proper pop rivet would be a “cherry” blind head aircraft rivet. imo you can’t beat the tried and true 1/8 NPT
 
Draining a lockup converter isn't easy as one might think. Flushing a converter was at best SORT OF OK back in the 60's and early 70's when lockup converters didn't exist. Flushing a converter with cold solvent and relatively low pressure doesn't cut it. Yes, it will flush the oil, but that's about all. Any junk (bits of clutch material) that works it's way to the end of the pump and stator vanes, is not removed by flushing it. Of all the transmisson shops I dealt with in the past, very few had a flushing machine. As OUTASITE mentioned the lockup piston rides on the cover in the lockup mode so as he states be cautious where you drill. It's been a number of years since I worked in the industry, but having a quick look at the converter catalog I have, I don't see any factory lockup converters with a drain plug installed. The Factory must have had their reasons , as lots of non-lockup converters do have the drain plug.
JoePole1 said:
Hey All. My 904 340 style converter has a drain plug in it. Nice. I am running it on a Magnum 360 and knocked the weights off of the converter. No issues there except you cannot drain it while attached to the Magnum flex plate but that is not the issue.
I recently acquired an A999 and there is no drain plug on the L/U converter. I want to flush or at least drain it and this is next to impossible without a drain.
Has anyone ever drilled and tapped a converter for a drain? I'm talking a small 1/4" brass plug. Nothing crazy
Click to expand...
 
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