Stripped rear diff. plug

[shanebo]

It was a rough day today. My radiator hose blew blew up and when I got home after dealing with that whole fiasco i noticed it was a little wet around the rear diff plug so I grabbed the old allan wrench and gave it a light turn...just as it started to snug down I could feel that horrible sensation of the threads not grabbing      . I can kind of snug it but if i turn any more the treads let go. Anyone got any suggestions? Can the the fill hole be re-tapped?Im guessing when I got the rear diff fluid changed they cross threaded the plug. Is there any fix for this or do I need to snatch up a diff cover at the junk yard? 

[DaemonForce]

Uh, I'm very capable of doing the kind of rethreading work in these situations but I try to avoid it as much as possible. I would just replace the cover with one out of the junkyard. The way your luck has been lately, you're better off just replacing things instead of fixing them. You don't need to try and fix these kind of mistakes others have caused by working on your car. In my experience that just makes things much much worse.

Model 35, right? Should be on just about every Cherokee, Comanche, Pioneer, Concord and late Hornet in the picking yards. Maybe a Wrangler if you actually have that kind of luck. Might want to bring the defunct cover or a diagram to match. O_o

I've never had to undo the cover plate before but I'm assuming they have a gasket. I'm betting you'll need a new one as I'm guessing the cover hasn't been off of there in over 30 years.

[mudkicker715]

you could try an expansion plug for the time being. like a boat drain plug type thing

[shanebo]

Did they use the model 35 through out the production run? I grabbed a drain plug off an 83 Eagle today and it was slightly larger than mine...would that have anything to do with the fact that the 84 was a canadian made model? metric? Theres a 79 concord there i could probably grab the cover off of

[carnuck]

metric and std were used. Car ones are often just the rubber plug style (I hate'm for 4x4s!)

[DaemonForce]

Did they use the model 35 through out the production run? I grabbed a drain plug off an 83 Eagle today and it was slightly larger than mine...would that have anything to do with the fact that the 84 was a canadian made model? metric? Theres a 79 concord there i could probably grab the cover off of

Things like this are literally the main cause of all the drama with these Eagles. There are really weird inconsistencies like this where the specs are different per factory. My 83 Eagle came from Brampton. I have the Model 35 differential and my cover plug is metric. This is why I said pull the whole cover plate. Undo the plug and if that's good, pull the plate as well. If that's too much trouble it might be easier to just go to an aftermarket cover like 90% of "normal" Jeepers. O_o