I believe Andy commented years back about the difficulty of tapping this location for 1/2" NPT, 3/8" being the norm and shown in this thread. Anybody do 1/2", and how did it go?

And, is there any safe way/trick to tap this location, WITHOUT tearing the motor down, to insure no metal shaving go astray?

Reality check, that half the population is smarter then 50% of the people and it's a constantly contested fact.