{"id":37,"date":"2015-05-29T15:05:04","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T22:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/?p=37"},"modified":"2018-05-18T10:17:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T17:17:17","slug":"stuck-engine-block-coolant-plugs-heres-a-1-trick-to-break-them-loose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/engine\/stuck-engine-block-coolant-plugs-heres-a-1-trick-to-break-them-loose\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuck engine block coolant plugs? Here’s a $1 trick to break them loose."},"content":{"rendered":"

I got a few of those 3\/8″ square male coolant drain plugs in my block, and I tried using one of those<\/p>\n

\"crappy<\/a> crappy universal 12-point sockets<\/a><\/div>\n

to extract it. I looked up buying a set of<\/p>\n

\"square<\/a> square female sockets<\/a><\/div>\n

, but I’m not going to spend $50 on that.<\/p>\n

So I tried to figure out a cheap work around. Here’s what I figured out. It’s only going to cost you $1 at your local hardware store.<\/p>\n

Step one: Put a 3\/4″ hex socket on the plug. The hex should face out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Step Two: Buy a threaded coupler. ($1 expense)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Step three: Place the coupler in your breaker bar.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Step four: Mate the coupler with the hex stuck to your engine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works like a charm. It can’t hurt to spray them with WD or PB Blaster before torquing them, but that’s up to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update May 18, 2018:<\/strong><\/p>\n

While you have the coolant block plugs out, go to McMaster Carr and buy some 90 deg valves for both sides of your engine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This will allow you to flip a valve open if you ever need to drain your coolant from the block in the future, instead of dealing with the awful mess of draining the fluid with a simple threaded plug.\u00a0 Getting coolant on your skin is not good for your liver and organs, so minimizing the cascading waterfall of coolant resulting from a coolant plug removal is paramount.\u00a0 These spiffy valves allow you to affix a one-foot section of heater hose to the end of the valve, so you can carefully and cleanly drain the block into a container without any mess.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No warranty. You are responsible for your vehicle. For novelty use only. Not responsible for anything or anyone. Not responsible for damage to your vehicle, you, or anyone or anything.<\/b><\/p>\n

Copyright 2000-2018\u00a0Nick Pisca<\/a>\u00a00001D LLC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got a few of those 3\/8″ square male coolant drain plugs in my block, and I tried using one… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,155],"tags":[36,33,35,34],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickpisca.com\/diesel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}