Installing the new waterneck

Today I cleaned everything, removing all the old stuck gasket and oily bits. Pictured is the old thermostat.

I put in the new thermostat and then installed a new gasket and housing. I used gasket sealant on both sides of the gasket and anti seize on the bolts.

I have no leaks after attaching the hose and re-filling the coolant. The engine ran fine after this, gotta take it for a test drive soon!

Removing the thermostat housing bolts

Soooo, the bolts. The stuck, bolts.

There they are. I had already started drilling but I centered the left one off-centre :-/

I was scared the holes wouldn't be blind, leaving metal in the water after drilling. It seemed they were blind holes thankfully.

When trying to re-centre the off-centre hole the bolt unexpectedly came out. Lucky me! Unfortunately the other one was the opposite and it was really stuck. Left turning drills didn't get it out. Vast amounts of penetrating oil didn't do a thing and I didn't even start welding a nut on being so close to the fuel line.

So the only option left (I'm not even taking easy outs into consideration) was to completely drill it out. Thankfully I centered this hole nicely. Being a 5/16 bolt I ended up using a 6.4 mm drill which separated all the threads and made the bolt come apart after which I only needed to pick up the pieces and clean the thread a bit.

I was very pleased when I got this bolt out and it's made me more confident for when it happens next coz I'm sure it will some day!

I did notice one sensor that is not connected to anything. It's not the temperature sensor because that's actually behind the hose (connected to the black wire)...