Hey everyone, new to the forum. I have a 1952 meadowbrook that has been in my family for 25 years, and just the other day while letting it warm up, one of the freeze plugs failed and left a giant puddle of coolant on the garage floor. It was one of the large stamped steel plugs towards the rear of the block. It looks to have failed due to corrosion. I was just wondering how to go about replacing it and possibly if the others need replacing as well. Thanks.

Today was nice enough to change the plug finally. Here are some pictures of the old plug (right) and the new plug (left). After I cleaned all the old crud off the old core plug I saw that it most likely wasn't original, and that the indentation necessary to completely seal/lock the plug in place seemed insufficient (almost looks like a toothed masonry chisel was used). Here is the uncleaned opening for the old plug right behind the oil filter. (Please forgive the dirty engine) And here it is after cleaning with #0000 steel wool and isopropyl alcohol. Now the pipe dope, a little messy but wiped some away after the picture was taken. New plug popped in!!! Started with a 1-1/2 ratchet socket to seat it but come to find out that was too big (was thinking that since the plug was 1-5/8 that a 1-1/2 ratchet socket would seat it, right? Nope, the INSIDE diameter is 1-1/2 but the outside diameter is not, it's over 1-5/8, duh...), so used a 1-1/8 and after a few whacks with a hammer it was in. Pipe dope cleaned off. Now here is where it got interesting, indenting the plug to seal/secure it. Hammer-on-hammer was a no-go, not enough room behind the oil filter. What I settled on was a ~8" x 1/2" piece of rebar and a sledge hammer (using the side), a few hits and misses later I got the amount of dent-age I was looking for. It has held for over 3 hours, both idling and driving with no leaks, so I think it is a mission success!! Thank you guys for the responses, you made a depressing problem into a pretty easy repair!

Rusted freeze plugs.

By JDaniel64
December 9, 2013 in P15-D24 Forum

https://p15-d24.com/topic/34917-rusted-freeze-plugs/

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Go to solution Solved by JDaniel64, December 17, 2013

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fstfish66

Posted December 26, 2013

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Posted December 26, 2013

hot heads makes a stainless freeze plug with an O RING and a TEE bar,,,the T bar goes in side the block and has a threaded hole,,the freeze plug also has a counter sunken hole for a stainless counter sunk alan head,, they are not cheap either,, i have a set,, i tried to install one with the motor in the car,,i think it would be better out of the car on a stand,, but i lost one of the T bars in the motor,,untill i found a way to hold the T bar,,,untill i got the screw started,,,after all that,, the motor only had residue of cooolant in it,,, it started dripping out of the screw head hole,,, an high performance super charged engine builder BIG AL,S TOY BOX told me he loves these freeze plugs but you have to use sealant on the O RING and screw head o rings,, i thought since hot heads said no sealant neeeded,,it wasnt worth all the trouble to install them,,,they are for the early hemis and poly motors,,