Blown Freeze Plug...Lucky Me.

[Einstein]

So we were cruising around the back roads today when anti-areeze decided to escape from my motor. We pulled over to the side of the road and noticed a nice size hole behind the alternator. It appears that one of the free plugs burst letting all my precious coolant out. Good thing Don was around because he knew of a easy road side fix, an adjustable rubber plug. They sell them at your local auto parts store for around 3 bucks. I just thought I would mention this so if anybody has the same issue in the future hopefully they will remember this post.

Pictures of the damage.


blown by jamie.mesaros, on Flickr

It looks much worse then it was. I would take this over any other problems I have had in the past.

[mascher]

If that picture is how you found the remains of the plug, you should check the other core plugs in the engine. I looks like someone pounded the plug to seat it until the metal fatigued.

Don's pretty handy, isn't he?

Kelley

[Einstein]

Don is very handy to have around. I have a few extra plugs in the mini's tool box just in case it happens again.

[Dixminion]

Glad to be of service gentlemen.

We couldn't find any of the original sheet metal plug.The freeze plug hole is not a through hole, it has a cast shoulder about 3/16 of the way in as you can see in Jamie's excellent photo. We used a 1 1/4" rubber plug inside the shoulder and it sealed up fine even though the shoulder was rather uneven.

The Van with this motor spent some years in balmy Central America and was likely run with plain water as coolant, contributing to corrosion.

Don

[bizarth]

Actually, they are both darn handy guys. By now I think Jamie's car should be called the Steamin' Demon.