i was finally getting to work on the 5.0 engine like going to do a carb setup and oil pan change so i could drop it down in the mav soon and noticed the front freeze plug rusted out on the frontdriver side head ,then i checked the passengerside and its got a rusted threw hole as well ,what caused this and now im set back even further from progress I know both heads have to be removed darn it .ive never had heads with the freeze plugs rusted out like that the block plugs look fine
you dont need to pull the heads. just knock them in then grab them with some plyers and pull it out. then install new ones. dont know why they rusted.
Aren't they usually brass? I guess I never paid much attention to them, but I thought they were made of a non-rusting material. Where I got brass...I don't know.
They come OUT. So start with a slide hammer if you have one. What will most likely happen is you get a big hole in them and stick a screwdriver into them and pry them out from the outside. This is just my thinking. I don't know for sure. I have never had this problem. But, this is water passages so if you end up with a couple SMALL pieces floating around, it shouldn't hurt. I would keep the amount of crap floating in your water to a minimum to prevent wear on your water pump and clogs in your radiator and heater core.
Factory freeze plugs are steel...Good aftermarket ones are Brass. To remove em just knock em in on one side (they will cock in the hole) then pull em out with a pair of vise grips or channel locks. Clean the crust off the sealing edge on the head with a scraper or wire brush. Install new freeze plug with a hammer and socket that fits in the face of the plug.(put some rtv on the sealing edge of the plug) and tap it in place.You dont have to pull the heads to change em...
i would suggest changing all of them...(heads and block)...if two are bad the rest are right behind them. running with no antifreeze is what rusted them out...you will want to do a flush of the whole system when you get it fired up... ...JMO...
I would suggest having the heads and block cleaned at your local auto machine shop. They rusted from lack of maintenance - no antifreeze, old antifreeze or too weak or too strong a mixture of antifreeze. If they rusted then what prevents the rust from being all through the rest of the cast iron in the engine? Clean them out and be safe. It can prevent a lot of overheating problems down the road.
My pop has a 93 F150 with at the time I worked on it there was about about 65k on it. It was about 10 years old then with the best maintenance on on it. New antifreeze every 2 or 3 years and oil changes every 3k. He got a coolant leak on the back of the driver's side head. No way I figured I could change it with the head on the block so I pulled the engine and did the usual core plug, timing set, gasket set, oil pump and bearing check on it. I changed all of the core plugs on the block and heads. The only core plug that was any where near bad was the one that was rusted and leaking. None of the others were anywhere near rusted enough to start leaking. Made me wonder why that one rusted so bad to leak and it was rusted almost to the point of falling apart. clint
