It's ALIVE!

Sounds like a proper resurrection. Congratulations!

robert

Not that straight forward, when I went drive it I found a water leak, turns out the upper thermostat housing had developed a hole. Replaced it and now have a new leak, possibly the lower thermostat housing.

"It's always something"

It can't be that you misidentified the original leak?

Leon

No, there was a 1/4" hole in the upper thermostat housing right at the end of the upper radiator hose.

What I did wrong was not looking at the lower thermostat housing but the thermostat was stuck solidly and I couldn't remove it w/o damaging it so I left it in place and wasn't able to see the lower housing.

When I put it back together I ran the car for some time and it wasn't leaking, I suspect the lower housing had a spot almost eaten through and as the car came up to temperature (and pressure) it let go and began leaking. I drove it some distance before the leak began.

The connector for the two small hoses is intact, I'll know more when I get it apart again, I'm still recovering from the damage I did to my arthritic back, hands, shoulders, etc. with the first go-round, I'm still too sore to get at it today.