HELP! S10 Block heater - Ha! Done!
 

Hey everyone,

I am trying to install a frost plug block heater in my 4 cylinder 1995 Chevy S10.

I have the heater, but the instructions only point out that the frost plug is somewhere near the front driver side corner of the engine.

I don't even know exactly what the frost plug looks like, where it is, or what it's hiding under!

I tried doing a web search and counldn't find a single useful bit of information on where it is or what it looks like!

Can anyone here help?


-Ben


PS- it's up on jacks in the garage right now!



EDIT:
Here is what the truck typically looks like all winter:
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287990500001

I'm not real familiar w/ that engine, but freeze plugs in the block kind of look like the bottom of a tube of caulk. They are round and indented all except the outside edge. Don't worry about being careful with it because you will not be able to use it again anyway. I usually poke a hole in the center, and pry it out. Good luck. Oh yeah, there will be coolant still in there even after you drain it.

Ha ah!

I located a thread on an S10 forum with a brief reference to the fact that the frost plug was near the block drain plug and should be accessed by removing the drivers wheel and big rubber flap.

I can now see the frost plug. I just need a two-foot long tool to access and remove it!


Here you can see the frost plug through the drivers wheel well, exactly half an inch past arms length away.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287990930001

I have a long spike that I was able to whack a hole into the frost plug, but there is no way to pull it out!

There is no room to get enough leverage to pry the thing!!

Try pounding in one edge with a punch and hammer. It may rotate enough that you can get at it with pliers:

How to replace a car engine freeze plug

lol, this reminds me of trying to change my transmission oil when I first bought my car. Unfortunately it looked like it had ne'er been done before.

I ripped the threads out of the transmission. Fortunately I was camping out at my grandfather's shop. Unfortunately. . .I only had a few hours to get it back on and head home. Unfortunately I had to get the CV Joints out to get the tools in to put a new hole. . .

All that said, get another spike. . .maybe poke a new hole and pin it between the two spikes and pull?

Just found two other sites that say the same thing: the freeeze plug is thin and soft, so pound in one side, which should cause it to rotate and the other side to pop out enough to pull it out with pliers.

Nope, it doesn't do that.

Instead, big holes just get punched right through it.

It doesn't rotate and presents nothing to poke out to grab onto.


I now have a useless truck and will not be able to do any of my plans tomorrow, nor drive to work on Monday.....

don't rotate
 

Ben, It doesnt "screw out" or rotate. It is a press fit. Once you have poked thru it you just need to pry it out.

I was referring to rotating on the Y axis, or swivel in place.

It will not pry out.

I have spent the last 5 hours trying to pry it out.

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.

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!

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
http://www.matcotools.com/ProductImages/SLF4T.jpg


Brake spoon
http://www.drivewerks.com/catalog/im.../LIS-50700.jpg


Brake spring pliers
http://www.drivewerks.com/catalog/im...003/KD-298.jpg


Cotter key puller
http://www.autobodytoolmart.com/imag...dium/13169.gif

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.

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

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!

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.

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287973460002

Here's the heater itself - notice this is with the butterly down, how it should be when it's installed.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287973640002

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

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287974360002

Block heater installed:
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...C_0557/web.jpg

Load Testing
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287976140002

And of course, my fine working conditions. (yes, it is snowing again...)
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12287976700002

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.)

Here's pictures of the frost plug itself once I was done with it.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12288344770002
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12288344880002
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12288344950002

Congrats Ben!!:thumbup:

I've been thinking about adding a block heater to mine...I've got the 4.3. From what I've been reading here and other places, this shouldn't be tooooooo awful bad a mod and your tips about the butterflypiece should help out.

Our winters are no where as bad as yours are, but not having to idle warmup for so long would be great. We probably will get as much snow all winter as you had in that first snow pic:)

If you are considering doing a block heater yourself, figure out where that frost plug is first, and how accessible it is.

Mine was really hard to get to, but the same engine in my wife's car is super easy to get at!

The 4.3L engine may be easier in that the engine comes out closer to the side of the truck, but other things may be in the way as well.

I just went for a ride in the truck.

This is the first drive where the truck was sitting overnight since the block heater install.

The temperature gauge did read right from turning the truck on. Usually, the temp gauge needle would have been buried.

The truck did seem to warm up quicker. I also noticed that it just didn't feel as sluggish as it usually does first thing in the morning in the winter. Last night wasn't terribly cold though, so it's all subjective.


Edit:
Here's what the truck looked like this morning
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12288637870002
Of course the block heater extension cord is covered in a layer of ice!!!

I am planning on using a timer, going into a Killawatt to turn the block heater on in the morning. The Killawatt will track total energy used by the block heater AND the timer.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...C_0285/web.jpg

I've read enough on ecomodder about block heater times. I am planning to start off with the heater running for 3 hours before I leave in the morning. After doing that for a while, I can experiment with other lengths of time as well.

crap. erased what I was typing. okay, try again!

Ben, at -20 my old protege only needed 45 minutes to be warm, and 3 minutes of idle to be blowing hot air and melting snow/ice. at -40 it was more like 1.5 hours, and 5-8 minutes of idle to blow hot. Hopping in and driving after 1-2 minutes of idle left me hot after 3-5 minutes at -40. I was always toasty when I made it to school :)
I did have cardboard blocking 90% of the radiator, so that helped.
I think I had a 400W block heater, 250W oil pan heater, and a 1500W ceramic space heater in the passenger foot well. I didn't want to run it too long, it'd suck the power down! The space heater in the cab made the biggest difference in comfort.

15 (min) to 45 (max) minute block heatup, 1 minute fast idle, I drove away happy from +20 to -30. (colder than -40 is like a special hell we reserve other methods for).

Congrats Ben on your (eventual) triumph! Learning experiences are always a good thing, even though they may be trying and tough during the process.

That timer that you show is the same unit that I use for my block heater in my VX. It was $4 at Lowes and well worth it. Been using it for a year now and couldn't be happier.

I run my block heater about 3 hours, as well. Gives me 100+*F coolant at start-up.
All the cheap timers (like the one you pictured) I found are not grounded. :confused:
I had to use an adapter to plug in my extension cord. Other than that, it works great.

Grounded Dual outlet timer $9.98 at Lowes
There are some out there, if you have a Lowes near you.

They don't carry the same model that I have anymore but mine was grounded for both plugs on the unit. And was $3.99 but only a single outlet. It handles the 400W heater I have on it just fine for a year now without even getting warm or making a sound.

:cool: thanks! :cool:
I'll check that out next time I'm wandering the isles.