Man Beats Coolant Plug!
Man Beats Coolant Plug!
About a year ago I was bragging that I always remove my engine block coolant plugs to refresh the coolant. Pride goeth before a fall, as shortly thereafter I rounded off the driver's side plug. Being almost a mechanic(but nowhere near a tech!) I figured I could handle this, just needed more tools. So I got a set of gear wrenches and hit it again, no luck. Tried removing the sway bar for more clearance, uh uh. Bought some long chisels and punches and tried to pound it out, hey it worked on another car! Not this car. By this time I'm establishing a personal relationship with the Sears hardware folks. They suggest a tricky little stud extractor that fit over the end of the now thoroughly messed up plug. It's hardened and you can get a pretty manly 22mm wrench on it. After about 30 minutes of fiddling, it finally clicked into place and victory was achieved. Lessons learned:use plenty of antiseize, take off the sway bar when R&Ring plugs(you need to replace those bushings anyway), spring for a 14mm gear wrench sooner rather than later. Being able to get the plugs out makes under plenum hose replacement a lot less messy and coolant changes more thorough and most important-things are right!
