As many of you know, there is a coolant fitting under the intake manifold of the L4 engines. (I don't think the V6 uses the fitting but most of this applies to any other engine, and that is a bunch, that do.)
If this fitting is leaking, or if you even think it might be leaking intermittently, replace it ASAP. Even if you don’t think it is leaking, it should be replaced as a PM item. This fitting will leak at some point. Odds are the one you have now may not even be the original one.
I know I said you may be able to clean/replace the O ring in the fitting. Forget it. If this fitting drips at all it can get coolant on the ignition. Coolant is very conductive. Just a few drops are enough to increase the miss rate and drastically hurt fuel economy. Allot of leakage can kill the ignition completely.
The fitting is MotorMite/Dorman PN 800-401. It looks a little different than the OE fitting, don’t worry about that. You can get this part thru any parts store.
You should also buy an intake manifold gasket and TBI base gasket. If the fitting breaks during removal, odds are you’ll need those gaskets. As long as you don’t open the gaskets, you’ll be able to return them later if you got away w/o them.
I recommend you remove the distributor/brick from the engine. That will give you more room to work and prevent coolant soaking the ignition. As it is you’ll want to make sure that all the ignition parts are cleaned of any coolant residue, dirt, and oil. Silly to repair the fitting but leave residue that will cause problems the first time humidity climbs.
The fitting broke...
Yeah, they do that. Allot. You can try a bolt or plumbing fitting extractor. They might work. If so you may not have to take off the manifold. Now aren’t you glad you got the ignition out of your way already? You’ll want that access real quick now.
The problem is the fitting is insanely soft. Extractors often can’t get traction in it. The softness however gives us another option.
Now we need a way to make the fitting smaller.
To do that you need a fine tooth hacksaw blade and a grinder. The grinder is for the saw blade. You’ll need to grind the back way at one end of the blade until it will pass thru the fitting.
Wrap tape around the blade or use a blade handle. You only need about 3-4 inches at one end.
Very carefully cut the fitting from the inside toward the threads. Here’s the catch... This is an NPT plumbing part, (No it isn’t metric.) which means a taper thread. If you don’t understand, head to a store and look carefully at how a 1/2” pipe fits any fitting handy. That taper is how the threads create a seal.
It is going to be tricky to cut the fitting and not destroy the intake opening. You’ll need two cuts so that the fitting will collapse.
Once you’ve cut it enough, it will collapse or even crack in two parts that you will have to carefully work out of the hole. To help it collapse you may need to tap on it a little. Whatever you do you’ve got to keep damage to the hole to the absolute minimum.
I have done this on the car but I’ve done this sort of thing a few times. If you’ve never done it, pull the intake so you can see what you are doing.
Before you install the new fitting you will need to chase the threads. You need an NPT plumbing tap. (1/2” pipe I think.) Be careful or you can easily ream the opening too large and the new fitting won’t seal. All you want to do is clean. If there is damage maybe a very slight cut. More than that and the hole will quickly become too large and the whole manifold is FUBAR. I don’t know if or how the manifold could be salvaged.
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