Zafira sump plug

[Howard Funnell]

Hi

I tried to carry out a service on my Zafira; all was going well until I tried to remove the sump plug, which has a female Torx socket in it. Yes, you guessed it the splines on the plug stripped. It was getting dark by now so I decided to call it a day, I visited my local Vauxhall dealer for a replacement, strangely enough the person in front was buying the same part. The man behind the counter admitted that he a drawer full and that he sold lots of them.

Have Vauxhall modified the design; NO, that would be far to sensible! It's exactly the same as the old one.

My question is how do I get the remains of the old plug out. I think I could grip it with a pair if Stilsons, but has anyone got different methods of removing it?

Thanks for your help

Howard

 

[mikeFNB]

no other than a good pair of mole grips with shaped jaws are better

you can use a bremmell drill thingy to cut a slot for a big flat blade had to do that before!

mike

 

[LeakiestWink]

Hi

I tried to carry out a service on my Zafira; all was going well until I tried to remove the sump plug, which has a female Torx socket in it. Yes, you guessed it the splines on the plug stripped. It was getting dark by now so I decided to call it a day, I visited my local Vauxhall dealer for a replacement, strangely enough the person in front was buying the same part. The man behind the counter admitted that he a drawer full and that he sold lots of them.

The main reason the heads get stripped is because (a) they are overtightend, and (b) the O-ring seal isn't adequately lubricated. I found out the hard way too, when I was told by two separate main dealers the tightening torque was 45Nm (the Haynes BOL is not very clear either - it does list both 45 and 12/14Nm, but doesn't clearly state which they apply to). This was WRONG (this figure was for the older 17 or 19mm, copper washered hex-head drain bolt in a steel sump), the correct figure for the Torx (T45) socket, rubber O-ring sump plug in an alloy sump is either 12 or 14Nm. I found this out from the official GM TIS. The second bit - your new sump plug will come with the rubber O-ring. Carefully remove the O-ring, pack the groove in the sump plug with grease, squidge the O-ring back in place, smear some more grease on the mating surface of the O-ring, then install, tightening to 12/14Nm. You will have a problem free experience the next time you do your oil change.

Have Vauxhall modified the design; NO, that would be far to sensible! It's exactly the same as the old one.

Nope, they just need to modify most of the service department muppets in their dealers who give the wrong technical data! The Torx drive plug is actually quite a good design really, afterall, from picking up the aftermath from a previous ham-fisted spanner monkey, arn't you actually rather relieved to be just replacing a GBP 2.50 sump plug, instead of a new alloy sump at GBP v.expensive !?

My question is how do I get the remains of the old plug out. I think I could grip it with a pair if Stilsons, but has anyone got different methods of removing it?

Hammer in a smaller allen socket. Then get yourself a decent torque wrench and T45 bit socket key. Snap-On is very very good with their Torx range, a 3/8 sq dr will probably cost about GBP7, if you manage to catch a local van somewere. I also have a couple of other Torx bits from different manufacturers, and they really are quite poor compared to the Snap-On.

Sean

BTW Howard, remove your 'real' e-mail address from your newsgroup software (unless you don't mind being bombarded with spam from the spam-bot harvesters)