HELP! S10 Block heater - Ha! Done!

[TestDrive]

Pound at the very edge of the frost plug. (green points in illustration)
A screw driver tip works better than the tip of a drift punch.

[gascort]

If you punched a large enough hole already, try slipping the head of a bolt through, or something with a good sized lip on it, then using the whole bolt to repeatedly tap it out from the inside.
I hate freeze plugs; I will never pull mine out if I don't have to - I'm using a lower rad. hose heater when I put one in!
Good Luck, Ben!

[Johnny Mullet]

You can do this Ben! Patience is the key. Tap a screwdriver through a side right along the edge and it should pry out. It it just keeps ripping, then keep going around. Eventually it will come out.

[TestDrive]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mullet

You can do this Ben! Patience is the key. Tap a screwdriver through a side right along the edge and it should pry out. It it just keeps ripping, then keep going around. Eventually it will come out.

I agree 100%.

It also doesn't hurt to be inventive. On various occasions - depending on what cr*p was in the way, I've used any of the following to pry them out.

Lady foot / Crow foot prybar



Brake spoon



Brake spring pliers



Cotter key puller

[bennelson]

Testdrive: I love your photo list of tools.

I used a ladyfoot bar to stab lots of holes right through the frost plug. I also snapped off my cotter key puller in there.

At the end of the day yesterday, I gave a phone call to my new EV buddy, Rich.

He came over this morning and tapped the frost plug into the block in under a minute. He's done a lot of those before. It took us almost half an hour to figure out how to get it back out.

After that we were going over to the EV build day.

After about 15 minutes on the freeway, my heat stopped working. I instantly looked down at the temperature gauge. Yep - overheating. I pulled over right away.

Lots of coolant leaking out the bottom!


We pushed the block heater back in. It had pushed out after being under pressure on the freeway.

The engine ran fine, idling in my driveway for half and hour, with no leaks or anything. I get on the freeway and BAM! No good.

We parked the truck at my wife's work, which was just the next freeway exit down. We left the truck there and vowed to return later.

After the EV build day, we borrowed a car dolly and hitched up my truck behind Rich's. Towed the truck home. Started snowing, good thing Rich's truck has 4-wheel drive. We actually fishtailed going through a round-a-bout!

My truck is now back in my driveway.
It's cold and dark and I'm tired.

Looks like tomorrow is carpooling, and Tuesday I can work on the truck some more.

We think what happened is:

We put the block heater in and tightened down the screw to snug. The little bar that spreads the "butterfly" got out of the track. So the screw snugged down the way it was supposed to, and felt like everything was tightened up.

Once out on the freeway, the cooling system built up enough pressure to push out the block heater just a bit, and out comes the coolant.


I will not put the truck up on the ramps again, pull the block heater, and check the butterfly. If what I think happened, in fact did, I should just need to reinstall it, making sure the little bar is in the butterfly track, and give it a really good tug when done.

I also have a cooling system pressure tester on loan. It's a device you put on in place of the radiator cap and pump it up to pressurize the system.

Looks like I know enough about what I am doing now.

I think the worst part is trying to do something and not knowing if it is even being done right or not!!!!


Also, yesterday was the end of a long stressful week, and me killing my truck wasn't helping that!!!

Think I'll be good now though.

[MetroMPG]

Way to perservere, Ben! You'll be fine, and so will the truck. How many watts is the new block heater?

[bennelson]

It's a 400 watt heater, but all those watts are going straight into the engine block.

I got to work on the truck some more tonight.

It was fun getting it up on the ramps, as the truck is rear-wheel drive and it's snowing out.

I got the truck on the ramps and pulled off the driver's wheel.

I removed the heater and inspected it. Seems the problem is how tightening the screw tightens the plug.

The screw pulls on a small cross-bar that spreads open a butterfly. Trouble is, there is nothing to keep the entire butterfly from just spinning around, unless it actually hits the heating element.

Turning the screw may tighten it, or it may just spin the entire thing in place.

In my hand, I tightened the butterfly down all the way and counted the number of turns, and also got to see and feel the difference between when it was just spinning and when it was tightening.

Then I unscrewed it and gently bent the butterfly back to its original position.

I now knew how many turns to turn the screw and what it felt like. I popped it into the engine block and tightened it down with my longest, widest flat screwdriver. The first time I put it in, I used the hex connection, but it would strip out before tightening! With the big screwdriver, I had LOTS more torque!

I loaded the radiator back up with coolant and used a borrowed coolant pressure tester to put 15 lbs. of pressure in the system. Everything looked good. I didn't see any leaks below.

I let the truck Idle for a good while, and then went for a short ride down the street. I while practicing donuts (winter driving skills) in a parking lot, my heat stopped working. I forgot to run the engine for a while with the radiator cap OFF to burp extra air out of the system.

After running the engine for a while with the radiator cap off, then adding a tad more coolant, everything seemed good, and my heat was working great too!

I ran the block heater to the Killawatt and saw that it draws 420 to 440 watts.

I ran the plug for it out the top corner of the front of the truck, more or less just slamming it in under the hood. That way, I can easily tuck it inside for the summer, it's up off the ground, so less bending over to plug and unplug, and I will SEE the cable, making it less likely for me to drive off while still plugged in.

Unlike the electric car, I can still start the truck while it's plugged in!


While I was working on the vehicles, I topped off the wiper fluid in the truck and my wife's Pontiac Sunfire.

The Sunfire has the exact same engine as the S10, only turned 90 degrees clockwise. While I had the hood up, I looked for the frost plug. I couldn't believe it. It's right on front. Nothing in front of it but a support for the oil fill, which is easily removed with one screw.

I think I could do a block heater on he car in about ten minutes.

Total time for my truck, including installation and later towing my truck home when it failed on the freeway? About 10 hours total!!!!

Things learned....Priceless.


If I just keep messing up and learning from my mistakes, I will eventually be the smartest person ever!

[Johnny Mullet]

That's not as bad as the copper washer front brake job you did on the Electro-Metro
You are learning and sometimes things like that help you next time around.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mullet

That's not as bad as the copper washer front brake job

Thanks, I almost forgot about that one....

I did point out to someone the other day that I have broken more homemade electric vehicles than most anyone will ever build!

I finally have some photos to share on the block heater.

Here is when I finally got the frost plug out. The view is straight through the drivers wheel well, with the wheel and rubber splash flap removed.


Here's the heater itself - notice this is with the butterly down, how it should be when it's installed.


Here's another shot of it. With the butterfly how it is when you push the heater into the block.



Block heater installed:


Load Testing


And of course, my fine working conditions. (yes, it is snowing again...)

[TestDrive]

Good going. FWIW. I think the o-ring expansion hardware on the KAT's frost plug heaters is more robust than the one in your pictures. (Use to be anyway - it's been quite a few years since the last one.)