401 nailhead, water jacket question

[Guest jodys65riv]

I'm working on a 65 riviera that sat for 10 years. I got it started and the water pump started leaking. No big surprise there. But while I was changing the water pump I got the bright idea to tighten the bolts around the timing cover. they looked wet. One bolt snapped off with hardly any pressure. It looked more corroded than I would have expected. So, I created a lot of extra work for myself taking the timing cover off to extract the broken bolt. When I took out one timing cover bolt near the fuel pump, much to my surprise, antifreeze came pouring out. I felt that from the corosion I saw on the other bolt that it was getting into coolant too.

Can anyone tell me if there are bolts on the 401 that are supposed to thread into the cooling jacket??Please tell me this is normal.

Thank you in advance!!

[wmsue]

That's normal. Even one of the bolts for the A/C bracket runs through a cooling jacket. I couldn't get the fuel pump off till I removed the bracket.....It's hard to do much on the 401 without first draining the antifreeze.

Good Luck

[NTX5467]

Not too uncommon for some of the timing cover bolts to break off. They are small and seem to easily corrode. Might be the "dissimilar metals" sort of corrosion issue, too, which might complicate things. Perhaps some anti-seize compound with star lock washers added under their heads would help keep them tight and corrosion-free in the future? I'd suggest some non-hardening "brown" Permatex sealant for those bolts whose threads go into the water jacket.

Nice to know about those "water jacket" bolts. Thanks for that information. I guess the default mode would be . . . if you strike water, stop and drain the cooling system rather than think you've broken something?

Take care,

NTX5467

[Larry Schramm]

Here is what I like to use.

12346004 - GM Teflon Pipe & Thread Sealant - 1.69 Oz. Tube

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[Guest jodys65riv]

Thank you all, for your response. Less to worry about now.