[AT] 430V Freeze plug

[James Peck]

I am going to remember the term “core plug”. I am probably going to continue to use the term “freeze plug” because there is no ambiguity to it. A mental image of the item forms in my mind when I hear or read the term. One simply rule is to fix the things that are broken first. I know of no one who decided not to use antifreeze because the engine has “freeze plugs”. It is not much if at all a problem.

I did appreciate hearing about the lack of freeze plugs in wet sleeve engines. The wet sleeve Continental engines used in US built Ferguson TO-20s and TO-30s did have a problem with cracking that may have been eliminated in the Standard copy of the engine. http://fergusontractors.org/nfs/cracked-block-options/

In the late 70s I walked through an area of Ford Cleveland foundry in the iron V8 engine of the same name era. They were making sand based formaldehyde binder casting cores for exhaust manifolds. Core plug sounds like parts of a sand core. We may need a foundryman here.

Thomas Martin AT List Member (tmartin at xtra.co.nz);  Why do people persist in calling them freeze plugs? The proper nomenclature is core plugs. Why? Because they close the apertures in the cast block, which enable the cores to be removed, after casting. That's why wet sleeve engine blocks have none.

James AT List Member (jamesgpeck at hotmail.com); Last weeping freeze plug I had was on the firewall side of a transverse engine. Those antique tractors do not hide the freeze plugs as much. 

Spencer Yost AT List Owner (spencer at rdfarms.com); <snip> So I started on the replacement of the leaking freeze plug last night. Drained the radiator and the block. The block was draining heavily rusted water the last few inches <snap>