How To: Remove stubborn valve body end plugs (the brute force method).

Sometimes the end plugs on a valve body get stuck, and there isn't much surface area behind them to pry them out. The spools behind them are also in the way, and could get damaged or stuck if you tamper too much with the end plugs. The bore sleeves could easily get scratched with picks, and add to the problem of getting both the end plug, and spools out. Picks break with excessive force. Here is a method of getting those stuck end plugs out. These pictures show the A4LD valve body. You start with placing a protective tool behind the end cap, and the spool. I have a drum brake adjusting tool in this picture.
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The next step is to fasten it to a drill press vise (caution: don't make it too tight). You could use an ordinary drill, and a vise if you don't have special tools like these.

Now that the hole is in the end plug, you see if the screw on the end of the slap hammer makes a nice fit. I compared the screw with the drill bit case hole before I drilled the hole.

Remove the screw from the end plug, and put it back into the slap hammer. Connect the slap hammer with the screw into the end plug, and pull out the stuck end plug.

This is the slap hammer with the end plug on the screw.

This is the end plug with the hole up close.

A4LD Bore 216 inner plug removal

Saw this post and thought you might be interested in how I got the inner plug out of bore 216

I removed the inner plug as follows:

Get a 4" 1/4-20 FLATHEAD screw (Orchard Supply), a 1/4-20 wingnut, a 1/4 fender washer and a tube of GEL crazy glue.
Procedure:
swab face of plug with brake cleaner on a cotton swab. gotta get all the fluid off the face of plug.
put about four or five spots (small) of GEL glue on the cleaned face of the screw
protect the bore with a paper liner
set screw on top of plug (centered) and wait a couple of hours
use washer & wingnut to pull plug from bore.
soak plug/screw combo in acetone for a day and it will release.

It looks like the plug gets very slightly deformed pushing against the L retainer, just enough to make it extremely difficult to get out. I gently polished the high spot with 2000 grit paper but be very careful about overdoing it.

Hope this helps somebody

I would recommend the Sonnax replacement with the O rings instead using the same end plugs. Here are two pictures from Glacier991's photo gallery:

This is a picture of the entire kit:

a square metal spacer came out when i was cleaning the body. I know there are spacers with notches in them, but this is completley square without a notch. It fell out and i do not know where to install it now? any suggestions?

Take a look at the A4LD valve body rebuild diary sticky thread on the top of the transmission section.