1963 Dart 170 2 Door Post Resto

So, again with one step forward, one step back...twice...lol

Found my spare voltage regulator and installed it. Started the car and voila, she charges. Then I got brave and decided to fill it with water to confirm no leaks and the cooling works...bad idea apparently. As soon as I got it filled with water I notice a leak at the front of the engine. Further investigation showed it to be on the bolt on the lower side of the hose coming from the pump to the lower rad. (the one that is in the water jacket). I remembered that when I removed the old pump that bolt broke. I was able to drill it and extract it but it didn't feel "right". I guess it was corroded a bit and the threads were weak, thus why the old bolt bound up and broke. I tried to remove the bolt and add more sealant and reinstall but at this point it wouldn't take any more torque and just stripped out what threads were remaining.

Then came research time. I decided I had two options. First was to drill it out and tap it to a 7/16" bolt but I wasn't sure if the damaged threads of the 3/8" bolt would allow this. My other option was to drill it out to 1/2" and install a sleeve. While this is usually the preferred method, I was concerned if there would be enough material on that tab to allow opening it up that far or would it break once some torque was applied. I decided to order the sleeves (thin wall E-Z Lok was my choice) and as the drill bit to start with was larger than the outer diameter of a 7/16" tap, I could try the 7/16 bolt repair and if it wouldn't work I could still go for the sleeve.

Today I pulled the radiator and fan...then the upper grille brace as it just HAD to be right where the drill was going to sit. I used the pump as a guide to keep the drill level. I went to drill with a 23/64 bit and the drill just pushed in. I guess there were no threads left at all. I then moved up to the 3/8" that my tap called for and it took ever so slight of an amount of material off. This got me hopeful. I had to pull the pump to tap it as I think the pump was slightly offset to that bolt hole as the tap didn't want to start when I tried it with the pump installed. Once removed it went really smooth. Nice clean threads. Tried the bolt and had no slop. Reinstalled the pump with a super thin layer of RTV and applied sealant to the bolt threads. Reinstalled the fan and rad and alternator belt and filled it up again. NO LEAKS!! I ran it for about 20 minutes and it ran decent (have to adjust valves as I have an annoying tick). Came up to temp fine and held nice in the operating range.

Now comes the next issue (one step forward, one step back right?? :wtf:). When I grab the heater hoses the one from up by the upper water neck is hot while the other to the pump is not. I flushed out the heater core with lots of water when I had the heater all apart and it flushed out nice and clean with no sign of restrictions. I am hoping it is just air locked. I will try to bleed it out tomorrow. If that isn't the issue I will have to dig a little deeper. I did manage to get the transmission all topped up once it warmed up while I was at it.

I'll get there eventually. Most of these issues I couldn't predict as I have never had water in the car since I bought it. Little things though. One by one, check them off and should be good to go.