Jay, it's your engine and if the rubber plug is what you're comfortable with, and like ya said you don't expect to have it for another 100K miles, no problem. If it works, it works. Since you've already installed the rubber one, it's all a moot point now anyway, but just wanted to point out for others in the future that in my experience, the rubber ones were intended to be used, like Allan said, as an "emergency" fix, kinda like those clamp on battery terminal cable ends, in places like behind a motor mount where there's no room to drive a steel one in. Beings you have your transmission out and I assume the flexplate off, just figured it'd be super-easy to install a steel one there. Even if you weren't comfortable putting it in I bet some local mechanic would have come pounded it in there in exchange for a cold beer... Your point about corrosion/scores in the hole is good, but we'd always just run a bit of scotchbrite around in the hole on our finger and never once have had a problem. If a person was especially concerned about this, the brass ones would be even better- they'd conform to minor irregularities in the hole. Plus they'd never rust out. The steel ones aren't only doing their job in mass-produced engines, there's hundreds of thousands of 'em out there in rebuilt engines that work just fine too. Not an engineering flaw, just the lowest-cost, simplest, way of doing something effectively.
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