Had my friend Kris H come down to the hangar this afternoon at my request to review my firewall forward installation. Kris is an IA and also works for Lycoming. A second set of eyes, especially with some expertise, is always welcome.

While he was there, I asked him how he recommended removing the front crank plug for a constant speed prop. I was planning to go with the punch and slide hammer as others have suggested but Kris said just use something like a cheap socket extension and BFH to turn it concave and it would turn loose.

I had an old 3/8 drive 6" extension that I didn't mind beating up a bit so I gave it a try. Sure enough, 3-4 good whacks with a hammer and the curvature of the plug changed from convex to concave has reversed and it was loose in the hole and easily fished out. Awesome!