Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and Mr Easy Fix
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2012
- Messages
- 2
- Vehicle Year
- 1994
- Transmission
- Manual
Hi all, I recently had a freeze plug rust through on my old 1994 Mazda B3000, same 3.0 litre as the Ford Ranger.
My mechanic, who is also my next door neighbor told me it was a 12 hour job (from the book) and at $80 an hour that's a lot of money to replace a 99 cent part.
Since I only paid $600 for this jewel of a truck I wasn't really going to pop $1000 + into it.
Simple solution for the rusted through freeze plug.... J-B Stik. I know, some of you purists out there are going to tell me I'm a moron, that's cool. I fixed the leaking freeze plug with a $5.99 pack of J-B Stik and a washer. That's pretty cool as well.
The book says you have to pull the engine to get at these freeze plugs and replace them. Since it was a small hole I decided, after discovering I could reach the back of the engine with my hand, to "fill" the concave freeze plug with J-B Stik, a putty like version of J-B Weld. Works perfectly! And, since J-B Weld is drillable, sandable, and all that same stuff you can do with metal, it can be removed just as you would remove an old freeze plug, no problem. I also pushed a washer into the putty to make it spread completely. The cool part is that I kept the J-B Stik stuff INSIDE the concave area of the freeze plug, which means the freeze plug will still function as it was designed. It just has a wad of J-B Stik sitting inside the concave area, no harm, but it stopped the leak!
After taking 10 minutes to clean the freeze plug surface with steel wool, it only took another 10 minutes to mix the putty and apply it. Done. Wait an hour and you're back on the road for under $10. Sure beats pulling the engine!
The one I had to fix was also the hardest one to reach. The other one is probably going to go bad at some point, but I figured I'd just wait til that happens before I fix it.
Since this truck is so old I couldn't justify all that money to repair it, but this accomplished the same thing, for a lot less.
Hope someone finds this and does the same thing, and saves a lot of money. If you do, please feel free to send me a hundred bucks for the thanks!
My mechanic, who is also my next door neighbor told me it was a 12 hour job (from the book) and at $80 an hour that's a lot of money to replace a 99 cent part.
Since I only paid $600 for this jewel of a truck I wasn't really going to pop $1000 + into it.
Simple solution for the rusted through freeze plug.... J-B Stik. I know, some of you purists out there are going to tell me I'm a moron, that's cool. I fixed the leaking freeze plug with a $5.99 pack of J-B Stik and a washer. That's pretty cool as well.
The book says you have to pull the engine to get at these freeze plugs and replace them. Since it was a small hole I decided, after discovering I could reach the back of the engine with my hand, to "fill" the concave freeze plug with J-B Stik, a putty like version of J-B Weld. Works perfectly! And, since J-B Weld is drillable, sandable, and all that same stuff you can do with metal, it can be removed just as you would remove an old freeze plug, no problem. I also pushed a washer into the putty to make it spread completely. The cool part is that I kept the J-B Stik stuff INSIDE the concave area of the freeze plug, which means the freeze plug will still function as it was designed. It just has a wad of J-B Stik sitting inside the concave area, no harm, but it stopped the leak!
After taking 10 minutes to clean the freeze plug surface with steel wool, it only took another 10 minutes to mix the putty and apply it. Done. Wait an hour and you're back on the road for under $10. Sure beats pulling the engine!
The one I had to fix was also the hardest one to reach. The other one is probably going to go bad at some point, but I figured I'd just wait til that happens before I fix it.
Since this truck is so old I couldn't justify all that money to repair it, but this accomplished the same thing, for a lot less.
Hope someone finds this and does the same thing, and saves a lot of money. If you do, please feel free to send me a hundred bucks for the thanks!
Gonna try this on my 99 ranger with the 4.0, found that a freeze plug is leaking on the front passenger side of the motor. Thanks
