For what it's worth:
When I was an engine line supervisor for Uncle Henry Ford (they made us
beancounters do a few months in the plant to toughen us up), the way we did
it (on Expeditions and Navigators where customers had ordered the immersion
heaters) was to stick a blunt metal bar about 3/8" in diameter on one side
of the freeze plug, whack it good with a hammer, and when that half of the
plug pushed into the block, the other end would pop out. Grab the protruding
end with pliers and give it a yank. YRMV because these were brand, shiny new
engines straight from the engine plant (ie didn't have 300,000 miles of
rust). Incidentally, we had lots of customer complaints about leaking block
heaters because the block heaters' rubber seals were very sensitive to the
torque on the bolt that expands the seal. Too much torque, it leaks; too
little torque, it leaks...

Daniel Snow
PhD Student
UC Berkeley

'82 Vanagon Diesel
'78 Puch Maxi Luxe Moped
'72 Motobecane Mobylette Moped
'01 Xootr Scooter

>From: Gnarlodious <Gnarlodious@EARTHLINK.NET>
>Reply-To: Gnarlodious <Gnarlodious@EARTHLINK.NET>
>To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>Subject: Re: block core heater
>Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 18:51:26 -0600
>
>Entity dieselwesty spoke thus:
>
> > How do you go about removing the freeze plug.  It did not seem as if I
>could
> > just drill a hole in it and put a large screw in there and yank it out.
>It
> > there a tool for this?
>My experience is the sharp chisel, take the chisel to a shop and have it
>SHARP! The installation of the freeze plug is that it is pounded in the
>center and expands to fit tight. You must break this compression by cutting
>the disk of the metal, it then comes out easily. Remember the cylinder
>walls
>are in there so don't pound with a sledgehammer. Try not to damage the cast
>iron hole walls or the rubber seal won't.
>
>The heater only goes in one way due to the casting around the hole. Be
>aware
>that if you install it wrong when the coolant gets pressure the plug will
>pop out, so do the initial warmup in your driveway.
>
>I don't think it is terribly critical that the plug goes at that end of the
>block. It works most efficiently at the end with less metal mass, that is
>all. It's just that end is behind the mount and exhaust, that is the tough
>part.
>
>Rachel http://www.gnarlodious.com

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