Cylinder Block Oil Galley Ball Removal

[Gerrha]

Today I removed the oil galley plugs from my 1FZFE block in preparation for getting it cleaned. Previously I purchased an oil galley plug kit from Yota1. This kit comes with new plugs and three steel balls. I assumed when I removed the plugs that the balls would just roll out. Of course, this did not happen, and they do not want to budge in spite of some determined persuasion.

I thought I read here in the forum about others replacing those balls. How are these removed?

 

[Fj80oregon]

The three balls in the kit are visible on the outside of the block two in front and one rear, not behind the galley plugs. Pictures help a lot in these threads. If you’re using a machine shop they can handle this for you.

 

[Gerrha]

The three balls in the kit are visible on the outside of the block two in front and one rear, not behind the galley plugs. Pictures help a lot in these threads. If you’re using a machine shop they can handle this for you.

One end of the engine is shown below with two of the balls highlighted. Just a couple of days ago, I learned here that the balls located in the crankshaft are permanent and used to seal the passages when they were drilled during manufacturing.

Are these three balls in the block the same sort of thing? To me, that seems a bit odd for two reasons. First, since they would be extremely difficult to remove, why would the Yota1 kit provide replacements? Secondly, why would Toyota not simply use plugs in these block locations like they did elsewhere?