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Help needed with clogged block drain

jerrybny

Jedi Knight
Offline
I removed the drain plug from the block today and nothing came out. I probed and probed and all I ended up with was a little dribble which leads me to believe its severly plugged. Anyone got any ideas. I used the prestone radiator flush and ran the car for about twenty minutes before doing all the probeing. I am using a piece of 16 solid strand gauge wire to do the probing with.
 
Have you tried running the engine with the plug removed? Could get messy but at least you'd have some pressure pushing it out.

On my TR3A I had the head off and used a tube connected to a shop-vac to suck out some bits from the coolant jacket. That block was never plugged up but there was some junk that this cleaned out.
 
Yes Geo, I tried that. I also meant to ask does anyone know the direction the water jacket goes once I have a probe in there?
 
The only way I could do it was with the head off (MGA). I used a long slender drill bit through one of the water passages & turned the bit by hand. You wouldn't believe how much gunk came out. BTW it won't hurt anything being plugged. If you do get it out a tap run into the spigot hole will make it look nice & clean. Be careful w/ the tap! The water passage hole on the MGA was straight up from the valve hole.
 
Had the same on my TR6, poked around with a piece of coat hanger, blasted in with the garden hose, repeated few times, got a trickle, then a blast of compressed air. It worked! Then I flushed proper.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Had the same on my TR6, poked around with a piece of coat hanger, blasted in with the garden hose, repeated few times, got a trickle, then a blast of compressed air. It worked! Then I flushed proper.

[/ QUOTE ]Yep, that oughta do it! It is truly amazing just how packed in all that silt can be. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif So just keep chipping away, Jerry; you're not likely to hurt anything in there.
 
Your were right Andrew. I just kept probing with the coat hanger in all directions and after awhile Wham Bam it was a gusher. I then flushed the system again. On to the next project.
 
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