gijoecam
Village Idiot
- Joined
- May 31, 1999
- Messages
- 8,298
- Reaction score
- 20
- City, State
- Trenton, MI
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 ExSport, '00 F-150
Well, my 00M12 repair kit install went horribly awry this afternoon.
I couldn't get the old tensioner loose using a wrench. I rounded two corners off with a crescent wrench, so I ran up to Sears and picked up a 1 1/16 combination wrench and a deep well socket. The box-end of the wrench wouldn't clear the thermostat housing, and the open end started rounding off two more sides, so I pulled the upper half of the thermostat off to see if I could gain the extra 2 mm of clearance I needed.... still no-go. So I tried to get the socket on there, but the deep well socket interfered with the *other* sensor in the housing.... the one you're not supposed to have to remove.
Well, I go to remove it using a 19mm deep well and 3/8 ratchet, and what happens? CRUNCH!! We've all heard that sickening sound... Apparently piece of brass that's molded into the lower housing to take the *other* sensor broke loose and started spinning with the sensor. Needless to say, there was no way in hades I was gonna try and put it back together and hope it held coolant. I wasn't going through vacuum-line hell again!
So, I got the housing out (after removing the idler pulley and alternator to free up space to get some tools in there to remove the two little hoses connected to the housing) so all I need to do now is find a new housing and begin the reassembly.
Oh, and I figured out what happened with the tensioner... Whomever put that one in at the factory must have over-torqued it. Either that, or the metal washer had rusted to both the block and the tensioner... that's possible too. It took the 1 1/16 socket, a 24" breaker bar, and almost all I had to break it loose. No way in hades a crescent wrench was gonna do it!
-Joe
I couldn't get the old tensioner loose using a wrench. I rounded two corners off with a crescent wrench, so I ran up to Sears and picked up a 1 1/16 combination wrench and a deep well socket. The box-end of the wrench wouldn't clear the thermostat housing, and the open end started rounding off two more sides, so I pulled the upper half of the thermostat off to see if I could gain the extra 2 mm of clearance I needed.... still no-go. So I tried to get the socket on there, but the deep well socket interfered with the *other* sensor in the housing.... the one you're not supposed to have to remove.
Well, I go to remove it using a 19mm deep well and 3/8 ratchet, and what happens? CRUNCH!! We've all heard that sickening sound... Apparently piece of brass that's molded into the lower housing to take the *other* sensor broke loose and started spinning with the sensor. Needless to say, there was no way in hades I was gonna try and put it back together and hope it held coolant. I wasn't going through vacuum-line hell again!
So, I got the housing out (after removing the idler pulley and alternator to free up space to get some tools in there to remove the two little hoses connected to the housing) so all I need to do now is find a new housing and begin the reassembly.
Oh, and I figured out what happened with the tensioner... Whomever put that one in at the factory must have over-torqued it. Either that, or the metal washer had rusted to both the block and the tensioner... that's possible too. It took the 1 1/16 socket, a 24" breaker bar, and almost all I had to break it loose. No way in hades a crescent wrench was gonna do it!
-Joe
