Hello-

I just had a heck of a job draining and replacing the coolant. And I've got a
few questions.

Do I have to remove the bottom bolts on the exhaust manifolds to drain the
coolant? On my bus the two cover plates that cover the pushrod tubes are held
in place by the bottom bolts of the exhaust manifolds. These cover plates
limit or actually completely restrict access to the drain plugs on each head.
My exhaust manifolds are mounted a bit shoddy thanks to the DPO. And the idea
of removing those semi-stripped exhaust manifold bolts is frightening to me.

Now I have an idea to drill a hole in each of the cover plates to access the
coolant drain plugs. Then cap the holes in the cover plate with some sort of
rubber plug when the job is through. Would I be crazy to do this? Or has
anyone done something similar--or has a better idea how to get to the drain
plugs?

In this same vien is the "bleeder valve" in the radiator actually supposed to
be some type of hollowed out bolt to bleed the system, or just a regular
bolt. On my Vanagon it's just a bolt-- And what a pain to refill the system,
letting the air bubbles out and re-threading the bolt with the
slowly-getting-hotter anti-freeze pumping through. Is there a trick here?

Any info will be appreciated.

Jeff
83.5 Westy
(Just covered 6,000 trouble-free miles from NYC to Wyoming and back. And yes,
I'm still wondering why I came back?)