Engine coolant drain plugs?

[81EA81]

I will be changing my coolant soon on my 86 GL EA82. I wish I did it when I did the timing belts but I had no money for coolant and new hoses. Ideally I would get a new OEM thermostat and thermoswitch too. soon to hit 300K I hope:banana:

 

I was curious about the plugs on the bottom of the engine,IS it a good idea to use these? If so do I install them dry? Is Teflon tape safe to use in a high temp situation?

 

Thanks

[nipper]

Just leave them be. They have been there happily for 300,000 miles they may not like being disturbed.

[81EA81]

That was my thoughts, thanks for the reinsurance.

[aba4430]

Another perspective: I am doing my head gaskets now (little stalled effort, but will move along soon), and I removed the drain plugs from both heads to find quite a bit of crud inside. This is on an engine with 129K miles. If you use PB Blaster, and let it soak, you should be OK. The right side is easy. The left side, you might need a special offset wrench, due to ASV clearance issues. The bolts were on with only a washer. If you run radiator cleaner, you might get some crud out.

[81EA81]

So I drained the just the Radiator and refilled it with premix 50/50 antifreeze and it got me down to 4 degree protection. good enough for now but not for the middle of winter. im sure those plugs will come out before winter.

 

While I was running it with the cap off I thought I heard a loud sucking noise coming from the area. I did a quick search and found my intake manifold gasket was smashed and there was tons of air being drawn in. There was a clear noise difference when I put my finger against it.Im sure the seal for the water passage is fine but not the intake its self.

 

My thoughts were that if there is that much air entering there and seeing that I live on a dirt road I will be allowing tons of grit to be sucking down into my cylinders. I would like to order oem gaskets and swap both out before the snow flies but it seems like a big project with all the vacuum lines. Im sure I can get it apart fine its just trying to keep track of what smaller lines went where.

Has anybody came up with a method of keeping track of every line during intake removal???Maby 100 different colored sharpies?? It would be very helpfull to find a good method.

 

For a temporary fix I had thought of running a bead of :eek:JB weld:rolleyes: along it just to keep dirt from entering.

 

What do you think?

here is a pic of it when I first got the car and I was suspicious of it

Its much cleaner now

 

Thanks

Edited September 30, 2011 by 81EA81
Missed a few choice words

[man on the moon]

The vacuum lines look worse than they are. Most are bent into shape and will fit only one spot unless you force them. Well, assuming you only disconnect one end--if you take them all the way off I make no promises.

 

That said, my preferred method is to use masking tape and a #2 pencil or maybe an ink pen. Wrap a spot with a strip of tape and give it a number, wrap it's mate and give it the same number. Way easier than 100 different sharpies! Pull the tape off when you're done.

[man on the moon]

I should add: Personally I think you'll have a way worse time cleaning all the old gasket sh*t off the heads/manifold than you will re-doing the vacuum lines. Get it as close as you can and slather the gasket with gray goop and put it together (no leaks yet for me, knock on wood).