Shift Rail Freeze Plug Replacement

[Explorin'VA]

I ordered 3 steel freeze plugs (Dorman #555-108 ) to replace the leaky rubber ones on the m5od I'm putting in my truck. I was able to install the two outer freeze plugs by driving them in with a socket and mallet, but I bent up the third freeze plug while trying to get it seated in the middle hole. There's very little room to swing a mallet because the middle hole sits so close to the transmission housing. Every time I took a whack at it, it would just flip sideways in the hole because I couldn't get a direct hit. I unsuccessfully tried to seat the plug evenly until it was just too marred up to use anymore.

Is there a trick to tapping in the middle one? I heard leaving the plugs in the freezer overnight will make installing them easier. I'm going to order a couple more steel plugs and try again. They only cost about 50 cents each. If nothing else I can use a rubber plug in the middle. One thing for sure is that the metal plugs are a tight fit, and with hi tac sealant they are likely to never leak again.

 

[Explorin'VA]

I finally replaced all the plugs. I managed to drop a plug into the transmission so I had to take off the top cover to retrieve it. I read that if you remove the shifter pivot or the top cover with the trans in gear then you won't be able to get it back on until you put the trans in neutral. I was able to line up the forks and get the top cover back on with the shifter pivot still attached, so does this means it's in neutral? I can't tell because the shifter is off the truck.

 

[rb142]

I didn't have any more trouble with the center plug than the others. Maybe there was something wrong with that plug.

The easiest way to tell if it is in neutral is to just spin the output shaft and see if the input shaft is free. Also, the shifter pivot will be right in the middle, and you should be able to work it side to side with some effort. If you pop the shifter pivot out, you can use a screwdriver to move the forks around in there as needed. With the top cover off, you can also engage/disengage the gears by hand as needed. Putting it all together with everything in neutral is easiest, but you can have it in gear as long as all the parts are correctly aligned (shifter is also in the same gear). Run it through the gears and see if it feels right. (Stick the shifter or a pair of vise grips on it if you need to.)