What not to do concerning a block heater

[Drache]

Posted on another forum:

Apparently some people drill holes in them, ram a screw into them to try to pull them out that way. That appears to be what this guy did...tried it a few times too. The light colored area in the bottom left of the hole is actually a piece of a bolt that he cut off and installed to plug the hole he put right into the cylinder ! LOL.

The engine started burning antifreeze (SHOCKING). We put a head gasket in it, and it still leaked. One of our guys had sense enough to roll the engine over when he had the head off and found it. LOL. First pic is of the frost plug side. Second is the inside of the cylinder with the hole in it.

[polywideblock]

that's one hell of an oops  

[tan top]

 Damn , never ceases to amaze me  , the  handy work  some guys get up to !!      

   bet it went something  , like  watch this  or hold my beer      why he drill so deep anyway   

[Drache]

why he drill so deep anyway   

Reminds me of the story of a guy who accidentally put a nail into the top of his foot with an air nailer. He went into the ER and when he showed the nurse she commented "Why didn't you stop hammering when your foot started to hurt?" 

My guess that hole was the first one because he read about the screw trick online and didn't know how big the block heater was. So he kept drilling until he realized something was wrong. 

[green69rt]

I don't know how these were installed.  Threaded, pressed in??  how do you get them out??

[JB400]

That's an expensive oops.

[Drache]

I don't know how these were installed.  Threaded, pressed in??  how do you get them out??

Pressed in and torque down a nut that holds it in.

Odds are this wasn't caused by taking the block heater out but instead taking out the frost plug to install a block heater. Many manuals suggest drilling a hole in the frost plug then putting in a metal screw into the frost plug then use the back of a hammer to pry the screw and frost plug out of the block.

[Steve P.]

Now one cylinder is a 2-cycle...

[J.Bond]

I remember someone back in the day doing trunk floor repair with sheet steel and a pop rivet gun and a drill, trunk floor looked good, gas tank took a beating.