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Coolant fitting and manifold gasket problems

I have a 90 K1500 that had 2 coolant leaks (that I could see). I have the 5.7 liter (350) with throttle body fuel injection. First was at the thermostat, no problem. Second was the coolant fitting on the rear of the manifold. Took 3 hours to get the "quick" connect hard line out of the fitting and then about 10 seconds for me to snap off the fitting leaving the rest in the manifold. So I have pulled the manifold off and found that it was leaking too so maybe this is a good thing. Anyway I tried a #6 spiral extractor on the fitting with no luck and then was told by a mechanic to hack saw in a couple spots and nock it out with a screwdriver or punch, which I am trying but it is not going so well. I am really afraid of buggering up the threads. Any ideas? Or should I just take it somewhere and have them deal with it? My other issue is with the blocked coolant passages. I was vacuuming out the lifter valley with my shop vac and picked up an aluminum piece used to block a passage. I could have sworn there was only 1 blocked (far rear drivers side) which still has its cover on it. Are there others, or maybe there were 2 of these things doubled up? I haven't bought the gasket yet so they may provide the answer based on what they have blocked. Just wondering if anyone knew. I am a DIY'er that is pretty much in way over my head, but this ng and my hayne's manual have been really helpful so far. Thanks.

Reply to
kenyon
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The same thing happen to my 98 when I tried to replace the quick connect. I did use the hack saw with success. I sawed in four places. You just have to judge by eye the best time to stop sawing and then use the screwdriver and hammer softly.

Reply to
Sid

Ditto on above advice. as to blocked off passages, both rear passages, the one on the left head and the one on the right head are blocked off by the manifold. water only flows across the front of the manifold to the thermostat housing and then to the radiator.

Whitelightning

Reply to
Whitelightning

That's good to hear, I guess I will just keep at it with the saw. Thx.

Reply to
kenyon

Ok. I didn't think it was that passage because it seems like the fitting I am removing would be right over that passage, so I ruled that one out.

Reply to
kenyon

Thanks for the encouragement. The hack saw method did work. Once I got the first chunk out the rest was easy. Now its off to the parts store to get all the stuff so I can get this thing back together. I did see in the Hayne's manual that they said the rear ports on some engines may be blocked off and by looking at the bottom of the manifold the outline of those aluminum blocking pieces seem to be outlined in those 2 spots. Just seems weird the port right below that coolant line fitting would be blocked. Where does the coolant go?

Reply to
kenyon

In that case I would say there is no aluminum piece under the side the heater hose goes to . Glad the piece came out ok.

Whitelightning

Reply to
Whitelightning

Actually you were right. My new gaskets have the rear port blocked on both sides. Unfortunately the old gaskets seem to be fused to the heads :) 6 hours of scraping and I am still not done even using the gasket remover spray! I am close though. I scraped alot of carbon out of the middle port on the passenger side, unfortunately 1 big chunk fell in, I just hope my shop vac sucks that crap outta there.

Reply to
kenyon

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